Second Stretches
by IWfan53
Summary: AU: A few years after she gave birth to sextuplets Susan Richards also known as Ultra Woman proves why it really takes a superheroine to be a mother, wife, and crime fighter all at the same time! Reed/Susan Johnny/Crystal, a sequel to Swelling With Love
1. Chapter 1

Second stretches.

AN: Here it is the start of the hopefully long awaited sequel to Swelling With Love!

First of all I'd like to say that "Second Stretches" is by this point a what if, to a what if, to a what if, because as you'll soon see it involves another pregnancy of one Susan Storm/Richards also known as Ultra Woman. While I find pregnancy one of my fetishes I also realize that having to many kids limits what I can do with this particular reality, also scratch my head as best I can, I don't think I can really work pregnancy into the stories as well as I did in SWL when those particular adventures never would have turned out anything close to the same if Susan hadn't been pregnant.

Moral of the story is that I lay this story down for fun and what not and don't be surprised if I write stuff in the future where Susan and the six kids she had in SWL are older and she never had a second pregnancy if the mood strikes me. Also I don't think I can do as much sex stuff as in SWL. Manly because I tried to have each sex scene be tied into some facet of Reed and Susan still developing relationship, so now instead of sex filling in the edges around their superheroic adventures you're going to get to see them being parents to their kids. Some of you will approve of this change some of you won't but there it is I can only write what my muse wants me to.

Also, I have no intention of giving this story a proper "ending" the way I did with SWL (I expect to end this story during the eighth month of Susan's pregnancy at the moment), because SWL was about looking at a particular event in these character's lives, while this story will be more like a collection of "slices of life" with a pregnancy involved to properly string them all along together and make the characters a bit more introspective than they might normally be.

So yeah this might turn out not to be my best work, or who knows it might be better than the others, I don't know for sure until I hear what you guys have to say. In short, feedback has never been more important to me than it is now...

Chapter one: Repetition. In which Susan Richards can't help thinking she's been here and done this before and Reed Richards keeps finding the same answer no matter where he looks.

Just like she expected now that Susan Richards (also known occasionally as Ultra Woman when she was saving the world, though it was an open secret identity) felt a little bit better as she flushed the mix of last night's dinner and various gastric juices down the toilet. But then she expected to, when you threw up quite frequently it meant you got rid of whatever it was that didn't want to be inside you anymore.

Or at least she physically felt better, her mental state was another story entirely, and one she'd rather not think about at the moment. Instead she just turned on the sink's cold water tap, put a hand underneath the stream of water and stretched out her palm into a cylinder with an open top to capture the water. It was much more efficient way of holding onto liquids than two cupped hands, and once it was full she drank.

After pushing the liquid around in her mouth for a few moments she then spat it back out into the sink. She repeated the process three times, and as she did so she couldn't help but think just what her teammate and husband Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic when he was actively "on the clock") would say about her actions. She wasn't anywhere near as smart as her husband, but being married to him had inevitably lead to her absorbing at least a fraction of his knowledge over their six years of matrimony.

The process of throwing up had left at least some digestive acids in her mouth which was what was causing that unpleasant taste Susan was currently experiencing. But water with a pH of seven (in theory at least) would neutralize the acid and thus remove the aftertaste of vomit from her lips. Several rinses later her mouth felling reasonably clean, she paused for a moment and crossed her fingers. Then she crossed them again, and again, and a fourth time just for extra luck.

Yes, it was a sort of frivolous use of her powers to let her bend her fingers around one another so many times, but when you'd also used your powers to save countless lives you were rather entitled to a few frivolous uses of them. She didn't actually say out loud what she was hoping for, since doing so might ensure she didn't get it, she just thought about it very deeply. It wasn't until she had finished doing that when she realized that since Reed in addition to being a genius was also mildly psychic, thinking extremely deeply might not be the best way to keep her wishes private, but the realization did her precious little good now.

Either way, she just slowly walked back to her bed, careful not to just stretch her body in even the slightest way, all to keenly aware of how Reed was extremely familiar with and likely to be awakened by such a sound. She lifted up the covers, slid back under them, pulled them back up to her chin grateful for the warmth they provided (she had only quickly grabbed her bra and panties to thrown on between the bedroom and the bathroom) and rested her head on the pillow. "Susan?"

She tried not to even think about cursing, though clearly her efforts to remain undetected had been in vain. "Yes Reed?" She waited about ten seconds before answering and tried to put a sleepy tone in her voice, as if it his question had just awoken her. "My mind might just be playing tricks on me, but did I here you vomiting a few moments ago?" Susan didn't even want to look into the brown eyed, black haired (it was a mix of what he had looked like before the accident that had granted him his powers and destroyed his body and the new body that he had taken from its previous occupier of Victor Von Doom (long, _long_, LONG story), but it was a mix Susan was now used to) face of her lover.

"Yeah, but it's nothing, probably just some bug I'll be over in a day or two." Susan slowly felt warm arms wrapping around her still somewhat chilly body. "Susan, you'll always be my Ultra Woman, even when you're feeling sick. Granted that's a very rare occasion ever since you got your powers. The last time I can remember you feeling sick enough to vomit was about six years ago..."

Part of her wanted to wriggle free of Reed's hug, but she suppressed that urge. She wasn't a little girl any more by anyone's imagination; she could face this like a grown woman. "We're going to have to go to your lab, aren't we?" Reed laid a gentle kiss on her face before answering. "Yes." "Well then give me a few moments to get fully dressed first." "Don't worry. I need to do the same thing."

----

The reproductive cycle of the woman born Susan Storm had been dramatically changed by the accident that had given her a body that could let her stretch, bend, and otherwise shape herself anyway she wanted. For the first six months after the accident she hadn't menstruated because each time an egg went down one of her fallopian tubes the walls of her womb wrapped themselves around it to hold on until it was needed. This had resulted in her becoming pregnant with sextuplets six months later and neither she nor her brilliant husband had ever guessed at the reason.

The two had made love a great many times during that pregnancy and continued to afterwards though they resumed using protection. Meanwhile Susan's body had gone right back to collecting eggs until it had enough for what it felt was the most efficient manner of reproduction possible ready when the time came.

It had thus come as quite a surprise to Susan when she stared menstruating again nine months after she'd gave birth to her six children (four girls two boys) but she'd learned how to roll with the punches (be they literal or metaphorical) quite well in the process of becoming a super heroine and just accepted it. She and Reed had both been careful when it came to making love, but they need not have bothered. Those eggs that were wrapped up in her womb were being held there not just until sperm was available to fertilize them, but until Susan once again felt like having kids.

About a month ago she'd walked past her children's bedrooms on her way to her own, and smiled at their sleeping forms, quite confident that she had this mothering thing down pat. Then since she'd had her period less only four days ago she and Reed hadn't bothered using protection since logically there was no way she could be fertile.

Unfortunately that logic didn't mesh with the fact that as Reed's sperm flowed into it her womb it unwound itself sending eight eggs drifting about the confines of her uterus like mines drifting aimlessly at sea. All of them were hit by careening seamen and all of them returned to the walls they'd spent so much time encased in. What would happen next was obvious, at least from a purely medical point of view.

----

Susan tapped her hands on the metal table humming to herself. "Doctor doctor, give me the news, I've got a bad case of loving you..." She smiled at just how foolish it was. Her six years of being a super heroine and mother had most profound effects on her and she knew it. Wallflower was the last word anyone would think of using to describe Susan now, she was a confident woman who was sure she could not only save the city or the world, but do it in time to get back and tuck her children into bed.

Ironically the changes that had come over her the last few years had been almost all mental in nature. A side effect of the cosmic rays that had given them their powers was that apparently their physical age seemed more or less stuck at exactly where they had been when they had first gained gotten bombarded by said rays.

She'd also rather dramatically changed her hair style during her first pregnancy, (she'd done it several times in fact (those the other ones had all been more for her own amusement rather than for public consumption), because since her hair was as elastic as her body she could change her hairstyle just by thinking about it hard enough) instead of the curls that framed her face she now where her blond hair long and down past her shoulders in a look that at the very least she felt did a good job advertising her femininity and free spirit.

Simply put, for a woman in her thirties who was a mother of six, Susan was both absurdly healthy and beautiful. Luckily the frozen aging process had also applied to Reed's new body as well, or else pretty soon Susan would have found herself in the ridiculous position of while being reasonably close to Reed's age, looking at first like she could have been his daughter, and then his granddaughter and then.... then she didn't like to think about what would have come next.

She didn't have to either, as Reed looked up from his results, a whole host of new things for her to worry about came to mind. The examinations had gone much quicker this time but then not only did he have faster toys to play with but he also knew just what to look for.

"Well you've done it again Susan, Mary might have been supposedly able to get pregnant to a child without having sex, but this makes twice you've proven at fertile at times when it shouldn't have been scientifically possible. Needless to say, your situation has also been much more accurately documented then anything that occurred just before the birth of Christ." Susan sighed as she moved from tapping her fingers on the metal bench to drumming them along her belly.

"So, how many this time?" The last time she'd gotten pregnant she'd been forced to watch her belly swell up with her six children to the point that if not for her powers she would have ended up completely bed ridden.

"Octuplets. In case you're wondering that's..." Susan sighed and hung her head in defeat before he could finish the sentence.

"Eight, I know. I guess I must have brushed up against some ancient fertility statue at some point in my life before I realized at least every other legend I've ever heard is true in some form or another." Reed helped her off the examination table and over into the bed they openly kept in his laboratory. Normally it was there so that Susan could at least be in the same room as him if he had some work so important that they couldn't spend the night together in a more enjoyable sense of the term, but it also made a fine place to lie down at the moment.

"Once again I could..." Susan laughed so hard she felt some very unladylike globs of saliva leaving her mouth before she regained control of herself.

"Screw it, screw it the exact same way you screwed me, and I intend to enjoy both experiences. Let's just let nature and whatever inventions your brilliant mind can conceive of take their course." Reed sighed mightily as he if had been afraid of this answer.

"Susan you do realize that..." Her memories of the conversation were still clear regardless of how long ago it had been.

"Yeah I know, there have only been about a handful at most of cases in which a woman managed to successfully deliver octuplets and have all of them survive." Reed nodded and Susan continued on without any hesitation.

"I know I'm taking a risk for myself and my children, but being a super heroine I figure I'm doing that every day I decide not to go out there and fight crime one way or another. I figure I'll be able to live with myself through this the same way I have through everything else, with the knowledge that I've got my faithful and loving husband and my elastic body on my side. Let's review the facts, a normal pregnancy is supposed to last nine months from conception to delivery.

Doing some math that is luckily well within my mental capacity, nine months times four weeks per month is thirty six weeks. But because the skin of a normal human body is only able to stretch so far, multiple child pregnancies frequently end with the woman going into labor prematurely. Mix that in with the fact that there are so many unborn mouths to feed and its understandable why when a normal woman tries to carry half a dozen, let alone eight to terms, there are often problems.

Luckily, I'm not a normal woman. I'm a super heroine, and my power is pretty useful for this situation. I know because it's the second time I've found myself in it. How many weeks was I along when I gave birth, Reed?" She smiled as she asked the question, and Reed smiled back at her as he answered. "Thirty six." Susan patted her belly as if to reward it for what a good job it had done.

"Yep. And they came out of me as neat as you could please happy and healthy. Reed, it goes against all normal logic related to this kind of thing but I gave birth to sextuplets who were all more or less smack dab in the middle of a perfectly healthy birth weight. Back then I never once worried about if I'd give birth properly to healthy kids and I think the record would agree with me that I was right not to worry.

So I figure what the hell, it sort of feels like somebody somewhere is laughing at me and there's no better way I can laugh right back at them than by successfully giving birth to eight new members of the Richards family. I'm feeling psyched. My body is feeling ready to stretch, so it all comes down to one question, how do you feel about it?" Reed lay down in the bed next to Susan.

"I'll be right with you just like I always have. That said, I think there are two important things we need to consider. The first is how do you think our children feel about us suddenly dumping so many new members on the family all of a sudden, or at least with only eight or so months worth of warning? The second which I'll admit might be a little less pressing is, would you mind terribly if I considered getting a vasectomy? Not to insult you, but given how unusual your fertility cycle is proving to be, I'd rather not find out a few more years down the line that you're pregnant with so many children that I need to invent a scientific name for it." Susan blushed in embarrassment, at times it was a bit too easy to get caught up in thinking that things were as simple as they had been back during her first pregnancy.

As a good mother she should have thought of that first point right off the bat, but then that was why humans didn't reproduce asexually, so that if all went according to plan children would have two parents to look after them and if one made a mistake the other could pick up the slack.

"Yeah I suppose we should go tell the kids about this. Umm..." Susan's blush deepened as she could swear her tongue was trying to tie itself into knots.

"How much do we tell them?" She hopped Reed understood the meaning of her words, super heroine, mother and wife, were all three distinct jobs each one requiring Susan bring a different set of skills and outlook on life to the table. Thankfully, as she'd be the first to say, (and Reed would be the second) flexibility had always been one of her strengths.

As a wife, one of the wonderful things about being married was that she could feel confident and secure about using her elastic (and seemingly tireless) body to have lots and lots of really enjoyable, really kinky sex with the man she loved. As a mother of six children who were the right age to be starting school fairly soon, she wanted her children to know that their parents loved each other very much, and have absolutely no clue that they physically showed affection for one another beyond hugs and kisses.

"Well given who their father was, I think even at this age they could probably reason out what it means if their mother's belly starts to grow bigger and bigger then suddenly shrinks back to normal in tandem with the arrival of their siblings. Also Susan, could you promise me one more thing? This time no more flashy super heroics, I'm not saying you can't stay an active member of the Fantastic Five, it is just that I think by now we all know our individual strengths and weakness pretty well, makes sure you play to yours. Don't let yourself get carried away trying to impress me, our children, the public, or anyone else.

I know you had to put up with three months worth of morning sickness, well some of the things you did made me feel like regurgitating my last meal even if for a completely different reason." Susan leaned over and kissed Reed on the cheek.

"Deal." Six years back, being a super heroine had been to a certain degree a way for her to prove her worth to herself and her others of her worth in the world. Now it was still important, but no different from any other job, you went out and did it. No more needing to show boat or feel like she had to throw the first (or at least second given that her brother almost always threw the first) punch. It wasn't a good use of her powers anyway. She was much better off using her elastic body to trip up her foes, bind their limbs, and otherwise create an opening for one of her teammates to take advantage of.

"That said a few things I'd like to ask of you Reed." Reed kissed her back on the lips.

"Ask away." Susan sighed since she was planning on asking for two things while Reed had only asked for one. Granted she was the one who was going to be pregnant with eight kids so all things considered she probably had a fair amount of extra leverage coming her way in the relationship.

"It'd be wonderful if you'd agree that 75 to 90 percent of the inventions you're going to be working on over the next few months are things like vitamin supplements that'll help me have a more hassle free pregnancy or give birth to healthier kids.

That and... I know even with everything on our plate we've hardly been bad parents, but we haven't really been doing a fantastic job at it either. I figure since we'll both want to take things a little easier than normal on the superhero front, that'll give us more free time, so why don't we try kicking some extremely proverbial ass in the parental area of our lives?" There was a strange look in Reed's eyes, but then for Reed it wasn't so much that a light bulb went off in his head as suddenly an entire chandelier was illuminated.

"You know, I do believe that gives me an idea for how to solve that other problem we were worried about. Seeing as its early August right now, that gives us a month to prepare, and you'll probably be pregnant through April, not to mention how close we'll have to look after our children for the first few months once they're born, why don't we just consider only taking care of super heroics when the team needs us and the rest of the time we home school our children?"

The issue of how to handle their children's education was a rather serious one for Susan and Reed. It was one thing to be a superhero with no secret identity, because while your foes might know who you were, you were also ready to defend yourself against them. But your children were another matter all together as Reed and Susan had both quickly realized.

Though technically each of their children had more power than either of their parents, the skill with which they wielded that power was another thing all together. Susan sure as hell didn't want to imagine one of her children (or even worse all of them) going toe to toe with some of the people who the Fantastic Four (and later Five once her brother's wife Crystal had joined) had faced.

One possible idea they had considered was having Reed use his connections with SHIELD (a government organization that handled human to superhuman interaction of one kind or another among other things) to get six separate new identities set up for their children who attended six separate schools.

Of course Reed would have also supplied them with ordinary looking clothing made out of unstable molecules so that if they needed to use their powers they could do it without leaving telltale signs of it behind, like stretching out of their clothing. They had all already been firmly instructed that if anything went wrong they were to find a small secluded place, squeeze themselves into it and not come out until they were sure it was safe.

Not to mention while around the Baxter Building stretching was at worst ignored and at best encouraged, if they were at school and supposed to be ordinary children unless something went incredibly wrong, it was firmly out of the question.

Despite all of the planning they'd done on the subject, Susan was still sure she would find herself so worried about the prospect of how her children were doing that she wouldn't be able to focus on the little things she had to deal with in her own life, like automatic gunfire being aimed in her general direction, which proved to be a rather depressingly uncommon occurrence.

Plus, the idea seemed to be putting an unfair burden on her children. While she could prance around the city in her unstable molecule uniform on twenty foot long legs any time she liked, her children would have to live double lives. Also any "come over to your house" or "meet your family" kind of social occurrence was rather firmly out of the question should they make friends at their respective schools. All in all, she was sure that someone would end up having a nervous breakdown before next June came around and no telling if it would be one of her children or Susan herself who snapped.

So while the idea of homeschooling had plenty of advantages (like allowing the kids to just be themselves), hearing Reed make the suggestion left Reed helpless as she laughed her head off. Before she could shut her out of control yap she blurted out the reason for the giggle fit in between yet two more guffaws.

"You really think that you could teach school children?" Reed looked at her inquisitively.

"I'd need some time to brush up on what material to cover, but what makes you so sure I couldn't rise to the task?" Susan made sure to kiss her husband before she responded as a none too subtle way of buttering him up.

"Reed, it's nothing personal, but teaching or otherwise imparting your knowledge onto other people has never been your strong suit. Ben is a graduate of the same college you went to and how many times in the last few years has he just stared at you blankly after you've said something? If your explanations tend to leave a college graduate like him or even just a high school graduate like me wondering if you started speaking a different language halfway through, and thus require an explanation of an explanation, what are the odds you'd be able to successfully teach six year olds?" Reed frowned for a few moments and then he smiled.

"Well you can help me make sure I approach the task with the proper mind set and level of sophistication. After all, by working together Mr. Fantastic and Ultra Woman have helped save the world several times and countless lives, I think we can find a way to educate our own children." Susan could imagine what a challenge it would be interpreting something her husband might say down to a level at which a one of their children would understand it, and it would not be an easy task. But she'd promised to love, honor, and obey him through the good and bad times, so that's just what she'd do.

"How about we just go and give it that particular plan a trial run right now? Between the two of us let's figure out exactly how we're going to explain pregnancy to our kids."

----

As usual Susan smiled as she walked into the room that her four daughters shared. The Baxter Building was of course more than large enough for them to all have their own rooms but they preferred to stick together, and so the room was home to a pair of bunk beds. Samantha, Rachel, Jane, and Valeria Richards where all apparently sound asleep as she entered the room.

Before they'd drifted off to dreamland though they'd evidently all stretched out their right arms which met together and twisted around one another to form a knot in the center of the room. Susan looked at that connection between the four of them and wasn't sure how to feel. As their mother she had been quick to notice that all of her children had inherited more from her than just her powers, varying degrees of her appearance and an "X" chromosome. They also apparently had their mother's desire to touch and be touched by the things that mattered to them, like each other.

Seeing them like this brought to mind the one real concern that Susan had about the children who she had given birth to during her first (her only up until this morning as far as she had known) pregnancy, and that was how they related to one another. Of course being the only kids growing up in the Baxter Building together it was understandable that they'd be closer then siblings usually were, but their bond went a bit beyond even that.

They really didn't like to be apart from one another, it hadn't been until they were four years old that Susan had been able to bring herself to make the girls sleep in different rooms the boys, and even then the two rooms were still right next to each other) and they'd only actively been sleeping in different beds for about a year or so.

Up until their parents had intervened, Susan's children had evidently not felt the slightest bit disturbed by the prospect of curling their own bodies around one another into one communal heap at night.

But what was apparently second nature to them, had somewhat pointedly reminded Susan of her own elastic exploits with Reed, and no matter how many times she told herself there wasn't anything sexual about it, just kids taking the old trick of huddling next to one another for warmth to a slightly higher level, her memories begged to differ rather fervently.

That was one of the big disadvantages to being both a loving mother and a practitioner of incredibly kinky sex while you were in the sack, you could do both, but once you'd gone and made something erotic there was no putting the proverbial cat back in its box. Or just like the song said "when correctly viewed, everything is lewd." If she wasn't careful and actively aware of what she was doing Susan knew she could end up seeing sexuality where it had never been intended.

Luckily, being a super heroine had also taught her quite a bit about how to draw the line between practical vigilance and outright paranoia. It also helped that Reed had managed to come up with an interpretation of her children's behavior that in retrospect made perfect sense. Since they were already starting to show some outward signs of his psychic powers (part of him expected they'd be able to bend plastic spoons with their minds in a year give or take) it was likely that they had also possessed them back in the womb the same way they'd always been elastic even before they knew they had superpowers or how to control them. Thus, due to the time spent together in such close quarters as their minds began to develop might have to the creation of a special unconscious telepathic connection between the six. One which left made seeing through one another's eyes just as easy (and sometimes just as unintended) as blinking was for most people. When they were together it probably barely registered, but when they were apart it lead them to having occasional flashes of Deja Vu or out of body experiences.

Since like anyone else would have they found such experiences unsettling, they tended to stick together so that they only saw things from a slightly different angle rather than what must feel like a full on break from reality as they knew it. Reed had also suggested that he might be able to properly break the connection in time, though since there just weren't that many psychics in the world, (especially ones who could experimented on) it was unknown how doing such a thing might affect their children.

So they had shaken hands and agreed that they'd cross that particular bridge when they came to it, until their children were eighteen and capable of properly making their own decisions their parents would bring up neither the theoretical mental link nor the possibility of dismantling it. When the time came, whether they wanted to maintain or get rid of the link with all the possible outcomes of either choice, it would be their own to make.

Not to mention there was still the possibility that they'd grow out of it before they turned eighteen, children went through phases, after all and when they had not just one but two distinct superpowers those phases were probably just that much more dramatic for it.

She calmly stretched out a hand and started flipping room's lights on and off rapidly, a process that had exactly the result she wanted and expected. A series of groans and squeals went up from her daughters as the strobe light effect shocked them awake. The conglomerations of limbs in the middle of the room broke apart quickly so that each of the girls could have both hands free to rub their own eyes. Jane as usual was the first one to speak up.

"Jeez mom what gives? You promised we could sleep in!" Susan would be the first to say that she had told her children to enjoy their summer while it lasted, since it would be their last before they started some form of education several hours a day.

"I know, but as it turns out today is special because your father and I have something very important to tell you during breakfast. So hop to it girls." Susan clapped her hands and sure enough it didn't take long before she had results. Samantha and Valeria who had two of the top bunks jumped out of bed without a care in the world.

This predictably lead to them splattering themselves all over the floor, not that they minded as they gleefully began to pull themselves back together. Providing their children with the clothes they wanted/needed had ended up costing Reed and Susan one of those many fortunes that Reed's various patents had generated for the team, but Susan had to admit it was money well spent.

Preparing for the horror of being cooped up in one "solid" body throughout several months of school, her children were really cutting loose in the preparation of the dreaded event they'd been told to expect. Of course she could well enough remember the wild exuberance with which she'd started testing the limits of her own elastic body as soon as she'd gotten over the shock of it all.

She'd been a very mature adult who's joy had been diluted by her sorrow over what had become of Reed at the time, and yet she had still embraced her new body (sometimes literally) like it was the biggest shiniest toy she had ever gotten. So it was no wonder her children still loved going wild with their power of elasticity. Which was why their clothing had also been designed to allow them to do just that, to start with for sleeping they had their unstable molecule pajamas, and for the day wear they had the outfits made of the same material that they now either simply pulled on, or actively used their powers to slither into.

Those outfits were more or less clearly a derivative of the standard Fantastic Five outfit, except with one major change. It was still blue and white, except that instead of just an ordinary blue five surrounded by a small circle of white, they're outfits displayed "1/5th" a numeral which her children understood the meaning of quite well since it had been explained to them several times just to be certain.

Working all together they might be a bit more than a match for any one other member of the Fantastic Five, but that didn't mean they should go trying to prove themselves unless they wanted to find themselves wearing outfits adorned with "1/7th" instead. It was an empty threat since the price of making new "uniforms" would be prohibitively expensive or at least not worth the small gain for such a large investment. But then part of being a parent was making hollow threats since as long as the ones who you made them to didn't realize you had no intentions of following up on them then they could still be quite effective. Once her daughters had finished getting dressed they all turned their eyes expectantly towards their mother who gave into their unasked question.

"Bounce you to the kitchen!" Susan jumped slightly curling her body into a sphere before she hit the ground and then took of careening through the hallways of the Baxter Building, with the quartet of slightly smaller spheres her daughters had turned into in hot pursuit. Susan still managed to beat them to the kitchen of course, and with more distance between them than with when they'd started. She uncurled herself and landed on her own two feet just in time to elongate her arms and surround her two sons Franklin and Benjamin (who Reed had brought to the room) who for their part consented to be hugged with the same (lack of) enthusiasm as any pair of growing boys.

Their reluctance brought to mind another important difference Susan hadn't been able to avoid noticing, that her children weren't staying children for as long as she'd thought they would. They tended to display greater emotional and intellectual maturity than she remembered herself being in possession of at their age. But then the later was probably be explained pretty well just by looking at their shared last name.

Granted, Reed Richards wasn't genetically their father, but Victor Von Doom hadn't exactly been lacking in the brains department either. As for their greater emotional maturity, Susan figured it was probably due to the fact that while most children growing up had to worry about things like not touching the stove while it was on or else they would burn themselves. Her own had to learn why not to touch at least a dozen different pieces of equipment in their father's lab or else they might end up opening a portal to another dimension.

Susan released the hug as the girls arrived and quickly got to work making breakfast for eight, but no sooner had she started than a question which demanded her attention came up. If her ability to tell children apart by their voices was as good as she thought it was, it was asked by Benjamin.

"So Dad, how come Mom has the cool power?" Susan spun around or at least twisted her upper torso about before Reed could even utter a single syllable.

"Firstly because the cosmic rays which gave us our powers didn't exactly stop halfway through the process to politely ask exactly what superpowers ability we'd like to develop. Secondly there is nothing pathetic about your father's intelligence." Of course now that the topic was out there for discussion Benjamin wasn't the only one with an opinion on the matter. Samantha rose up, stretching out her torso a bit allowing her to appear taller as she spoke.

"I'm not saying it doesn't have its uses, but being stretchy, that's way more useful not to mention fun from what I've seen." Susan gave her daughter the particularly withering stare of a mother, which practically shouted the unspoken question "and just how much exactly have you seen compared to me?" in the process.

"Do any of you six know why you always fail to keep up with me when we bounce to the kitchen?" Six heads were shaken back and forth and then Susan wrapped her midsection around her husband's body before answering.

"Because your father showed me how to do it so quickly. He figured out my mass and standard starting velocity then calculated exactly how I need to angle each and every single one of my bounces so as to hit the spots guaranteed to help get me here as fast as possible. You see kids, elasticity and intelligence go together every bit as well as the two of us do, because they give you the same core strength, the ability to approach a problem from many different directions and figure out from which one, and in what way you want to attack it." Rachel arched an eyebrow in surprise.

"You really figured all that out, Dad?" Susan looked appreciatively at her husband who shot a small smile back at her. Another useful thing that the two had picked up from their time spent as superheroes and applied to parenting was how to best to deal with situations in which you were outnumbered.

So in the kitchen just like in the field Reed and Susan watched each other's backs. Reed with all his armor's shields and what not was better able to shrug off energy based attacks and Susan's elastic frame made her able to laugh off most physical ones. In this particular case the net result was that their children saw Susan praising Reed, rather than defending someone who couldn't do it themselves.

"Well if you want to see me prove it, I should have time to give you all a rather brief overview of the some of your mother's tricks while she takes care of cooking breakfast." Fairly soon Susan was the only one left in the kitchen, a privacy she was grateful for. Trying to make a meal for herself, her husband and her all of her children while supervising said children could be a task and a half, even for super heroines.

That said, practice makes perfect and she had plenty of practice, allowing her to easily finish this particular chore with time to spare. So when he children finally returned to the room with Reed following behind them they found Susan Richards seated serenely before them. Jane smiled with glee as she got herself sorted out herself after managing to bounce over the back of her chair and land in it momentarily being slightly flattened from the her sudden stop.

"Tomorrow morning you're so going down mom!" Reed coughed slightly as he made himself at home in his own respective seat.

"Actually children its important you bear in mind that even with your elastic bodies, you still have to obey some of the laws of physics. Though the difference is reduced while you're all in spherical form, you still have less mass than your mother and therefore you'll end generating different amounts of momentum. The path I just showed you is perfect for her, but you'll need to figure out your own." That particular issue over and done with, everyone got down to eating. Of course even as she ate Susan couldn't take her mind off of those of her children who weren't currently residing within her body.

They'd end up being known as "The Storm Sextuplets" even though Susan had changed her last name by the time she'd given birth, probably because the press like superheroes (and super villains for that matter) felt quite firmly that alliteration always made monikers much more eye catching.

Since they had been conceived prior to her marriage, and a belly full of sextuplets wasn't exactly kind of kind you could hide, (especially not in a form fitting super heroine costume) they had ending up getting plenty of attention from the media even before they'd been born, and continued to do so after the fact. This was one of the reasons Susan had been in such a hurry to think up names for them, lest she be buried in an avalanche of suggestions from various well wishers.

The boys had been easy, Franklin after Susan's farther, and Benjamin after Benjamin Grimm who had been Reed's friend since high school and a faithful member of the Fantastic Five since it had originally been the Fantastic Four.

The girls had been trickier, but in the end she'd decided to just take the most blatant and obvious solution to the problem, and started throwing out modifications of the names of those important to her. This was how Samantha, Jane and Rachel Richards had gotten their appellations. She hadn't been sure about her fourth daughter, but luckily Reed (as was his habit) had provided a solution to that problem.

Apparently despite being otherwise one of the coldest, most methodical men to ever be born, Victor Von Doom had momentarily had his heart melted by a girl named Valeria and Reed suggested that this more than anything else was proof that the name was worthy of being passed on to one of their offspring. Susan had heard of worse names, and it filled the last opening.

Of course, she'd probably need to start thinking of what to call her eight kids... well if she could come up with one name for a boy and girl per month then she'd be set no matter how the chromosomes were split, and that wasn't such an impossible task was it?

Susan had no sooner thought about the subject of names for her children to be then her mind seized on the subject of how their given names had affected her children who already were. There were six adults currently living in the Baxter Building: herself, Reed, her brother Johnny, his wife Crystal, Benjamin Grimm, and his blind wife Alicia who he'd married not long after Johnny and Crystal had tied the knot. So was it nature or nurture that lead to each of the adults having their own daughter or son, who in turned seemed to resemble them?

Samantha was Susan's daughter through and through, blond hair worn long, and she had expressed since childhood the steel spine that Susan hadn't even realized she'd been in possession of until she'd faced down those bent on world domination or some other equally vile goal as Ultra Woman.

Black haired Rachel tended to take after her father to the point that her mother was surprised that she had 20/20 vision while Reed had needed glasses growing up. She was the quiet (unless she felt there was someone in need of being enlightened in regards to some of her already impressive store of knowledge) and studious type who just about everyone agreed was bound to follow in Reed's footsteps and become at least as well known for her intelligence as superpowers when she grew up.

Jane was an impetuous tomboy who loved to subject her elastic body to any bizarre dare that her uncle Johnny could come up with. She like to wear her blond hair short (luckily since Susan's children had every aspect of their mother's powers they could all figure out whatever hairstyle they wanted and as long as it passed muster with their parents they could stick with it for as long as they liked) and was the one who the fingers inevitable drifted towards whenever they heard dreaded question "which one of you is responsible for this" regardless of whose fault it really was.

Valeria had spent a lot of time hanging around with Crystal and subsequently had picked up some of the inhuman princess' regal demeanor. Ironically she had some streaks of black in her blond hair that tended to mirror the black birthmark in Crystal's orange hair which could have been just one of life's many tricks on the Richards family. She was currently "growing" her hair long, so she also had enough to make a reasonably sized pony tail which in addition to her dual colored hair helped her stand out from the others.

Benjamin, of course, had quickly taken after his namesake and godfather. He wasn't really a daredevil like Jane, but he rarely backed down and seemed to enjoy sparing more than any of the others. Other mothers probably would have been remarkably concerned at the prospect of their children learning how to fight (especially when one of their teachers had picked up most of his training from his time in the air force), but Susan encouraged it as long as they only did with each other under while well supervised. After all given their elastic bodies, it wasn't like they could actively hurt one another, and the more any of her children knew about how to use their powers the safer Susan felt letting them out of her sight.

Franklin also took after his namesake, like Susan's father he apparently had a considerable skill with his hands. Or at least that was what Alicia Grimm said, and considering that even though she was blind, her work in sculpture was very well regarded. She probably knew good work when she got her hands on it. She said that Franklin had "an artist's eye" even if he'd need years of practice to hone his skills, and Susan had just shrugged in response. Considering that the closest she came to sculpting was how she used her powers to rearrange her body she wasn't about to stand in the way of her son following up in whatever (law abiding of course) profession he enjoyed.

So there they were, her half a dozen children and no two alike. Reed was still a little surprised by that, apparently they were fraternal sextuplets, which meant not only had there been six fertilized eggs growing in her womb, but they had started out as six independent eggs released from her uterus, which was pretty darn unlikely in a woman who'd prior to gaining her powers had possessed a menstrual cycle you could set your clock (or at least calendar) to.

And now she had eight in there. Big freaking deal, she'd always wanted to have a large family with Reed. Of course originally a 'large' family had meant three or four children, not fourteen, but then superheroes were known for doing everything larger than normal and fourteen kids as a result of two pregnancies certainly fit that particular bill.

"So Mom, what was it you wanted to talk to us about that was so important it couldn't wait till noon?" Unsurprisingly Jane had finished eating first, and had immediately sought other means of keeping herself entertained. The words shook Susan out of her mental revelry and lead her to accidentally blurting out the fact of the matter without any sort of build up.

"I'm pregnant." Samantha put down her spoon swallowed, peered intently at her mother..

"Is that like being sick, is it contagious?" Susan couldn't stop herself from chuckling and put on her best beaming smile as she answered.

"Well, for me, it is like being sick, well maybe for a month or two, but you six don't have to worry about catching it in the least. Reed, do you want take over since you're good at defining things?" Reed nodded and broke into what was not very much like a textbook definition of pregnancy.

"Well sometimes when a man and woman love each other very much, it turns out that the love they have can't simply be kept between the two of them. So the woman ends up pregnant which is a nine month long process through which children come into the world."

There was a strange look in her children's eyes, but privately Susan couldn't help but think that she would have gladly kissed her husband then and there. Their six offspring been members of the Richards family long enough to recognize what it meant when Reed spoke in that tone of voice. It meant he was describing "Science" (you could hear the capital letter and possibly even an exclamation mark) and nobody, but nobody, argued with Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Richards (Chemistry and Psychics were the two of his PhDs that came most easily to Susan's mind) when he used that tone of voice. So between it being more believable than the stork, finding children in the cabbage patch, or half a dozen other such stories, it was clear from the looks on her children's faces that they were more than ready to take their father's words for it.

"Of course when the two love each other more than your average couple does they end up having more than one child, which is why your mother was pregnant with all of you at the same time." Susan stroked her belly as she jumped back into the conversation.

"And of course it goes without saying that the two of us have only come to love each other even more over the years, which is why this time around I'm pregnant with eight siblings for all of you." A moment later Benjamin's neck was stretched out his head only a couple of inches from Susan's belly staring intently at it.

"So you're saying we've got eight brothers and /or sisters in there? Wow, I mean I knew we were good at fitting into small places..." Reed promptly interrupted his son before he could go any further.

"I repeat pregnancy is a nine month long process. At the moment she's only one month along, and needless to say her condition will become more obvious as time passes. If you ever want to see more or less what's going to happen to her, you can just flip through that second photo album from back when we were the Fantastic Four." Rachel nodded slowly, very slowly.

"So that's what was going on in those wedding photos. I always assumed it was some weird Richards or Storm family tradition that you'd eventually get around to telling us about." Susan shook her head her smile not wavering in the slightest.

"Nope, and it certainly wasn't something I had a choice about at the time...." Of course that wasn't strictly true. She could always have used her powers to make herself look every bit as unpregnant as she had been on the day the Fantastic Four were founded, but it would have seemed like cheating, and besides, if you could laugh at the fact that they were getting married while visibly (make that more or less startlingly for a woman only four months along) pregnant, then you could count on everyone else who mattered laughing along with you. Valeria looked up from her bowl of cereal her eyes twitching slightly.

"So just for the record, how should we expect this to affect us?" Reed stood up walked over, and wrapped his arms around Susan's shoulders.

"Well ironically enough, the first trimester which will last for another two months is probably going to be the worst, your mother is going to be a little bit under the weather, so if you six could be on your best behavior both of us would greatly appreciate it. Then during the second trimester, months four through six, she'll be more or less herself as normal except that her midsection growing outwards to make room for the eight children who are taking up more and more space inside her.

For the third trimester, month seven till she gives birth, she'll be rather severely encumbered by her belly, but she managed to handle herself fairly well last time, and her control of her powers has only gotten better over the years. But once the children are actually born, well... it won't be that we will love you any less, it's just that they'll need our help and time more than you will." All at once, as if they'd been given some sort of signal the six children seated at the table burst into laughter, and Susan gave them all an eagle eyed stare crossing her arms in irritation.

"Some joke I'm missing?" Samantha stopped laughing, but still needed to give a slight wistful sigh before she could voice actual words.

"Sorry Mom. It's just that if having you two for parents has taught us all one thing it's that you're sorry life isn't fair, but there are other people out there who need you more than we do regardless of how much you love us. Yes we're generally getting that speech because you're superheroes and need to go stop some villain, but this entire having new kids thing seems to work more or less along the same lines. You'll still find time for us, even after the new kids are born right?"

"Glacatus himself couldn't stop us from finding time to do that." She said it half jokingly, half seriously. Many where the villains who regretted ever hearing Susan Richards utter the words along the lines of "I promised my kids I'd be home ten minutes from now, it's a nine minute walk for me, do the math..." since they also usually lead to her letting loose with a flurry of blows from whatever part of her elastic body she felt was appropriate and with equal frequency leading to her foes looking like they'd had several clips worth of rubber bullets emptied into various parts of their bodies. A wicked smile flashed on Jane's face.

"Well then, if we've only got mom to ourselves for the next few months it sounds like we should squeeze them for all they're worth." Reed of course knew what his daughter was thinking (without even needing to read her mind) and immediately prompted her.

"Not in the kitchen if you please. There's a reason the Baxter Building has so many rooms set up for training and sparring, it's to prevent needless property damage in the rooms that aren't." Jane hung her head and sighed.

"Fine Dad..."

"Awww, why is my favorite niece looking so down?" Susan's brother Jonathan "Johnny" Storm also known as the Mandroid for his ability to transform his body into a metallic form which allowed him to interface with other machines at a level even Reed found uncanny tussled Jane's hair as he walked into the kitchen. Jane gave her head a quick shake and her hair sprung back into its traditional appearance, a very carefully ordered sort of chaos.

"Same kind of thing as always Uncle Johnny. Today Dad is being all, don't go getting into fights with Mom at the breakfast table."

"Well it is good advice whether or not you choose to follow it." Johnny's wife, Crystal, followed her husband into the kitchen. She had bright orange hair with a pair of unique looking black birthmarks and bright green eyes. In any other superhero team she probably would have been something of an odd woman out for numerous reasons.

First off the other four members of the team had gained their powers by being bombarded with cosmic rays during an attempt to be the first civilians to put foot on the moon. Crystal on the other hand was an Inhuman. A member of a small group who had due to extraterrestrial intervention had become a branch all to itself on the homo sapien family tree a very long time ago. No matter how many branches a tree sprouted however they were always all fed by the same set of roots, a fact proven by how she and Johnny had hit it off more or less from the moment they'd met. It was a longer story than that, obviously, but suffice to say even though on paper Crystal should have stood out like a sore thumb (especially given that she joined the team about a year after it was founded) she still somehow managed to fit in just fine.

Personally, Susan found her a wonderful moderating influence on her brother's behavior, and since she had her own brood to look after, she didn't miss having that particular burden on her shoulders one bit.

Johnny and Crystal both headed towards the refrigerator, Johnny selecting a few bits of leftovers, and handed them on a plate to his wife. Crystal's blue gloved hands (as an official member of the Fantastic Five she wore a blue unstable molecule uniform just like the others) glowed for a moment as she channeled her elemental control of fire for a fairly mundane purpose, about ten seconds the glow vanished and she handed the plate back to Johnny at which point he gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

"Thanks a ton, Crys." Johnny joined them at the table pulling up a chair next to Jane, though he made sure there was enough room at the table for Crystal to sit on the other side of him.

"So was it you wanted to pick a fight with your mother before even leaving the breakfast table?" Jane shrugged as she leaned back in her chair, earning a glower from said mother.

"Four legs on the floor young lady." Jane just smirked lengthening her own actual legs, so that the back legs of the chair and her own where on the floor.

"Like I was about to say, Mom told us we're going to be getting some more siblings soon so I thought it'd be a good idea to have all the fun we can with her before they arrive."

"WHUMP!!" Johnny leaned back even further and much more suddenly than Jane had, and thus his chair ended up falling over. He sat on the floor for a moment, only his head visible to his sister at the other end of the table.

"You're pregnant, again?" Susan shifted her glare from her disobedient daughter to her brother.

"Johnny, I'm married to a man who even the better part of half a decade after our marriage I'm still head over heels in love with. There are plenty of married woman who end up getting pregnant a lot more frequently than twice in seven years." Johnny slowly readjusted his chair and resumed his seat.

"Yeah, well all those other women aren't my sister, and more to the point they didn't have six kids the first time around. So, brother in law, how many is it this time?"

"Eight."

WHUMP!! Over the chair went again and Jane wasn't the only one of Susan's children who chuckled at it this time around, just the one who did the loudest. For his part Johnny's eyebrows seemed to be pinned to the top of his forehead.

"Eight? Come on that's not even funny!"

"Whether or not it's funny it's true." Crystal placed her own plate on the table a wide smile on her face.

"What I'm sure my husband is trying to say is that he stands in awe of how great a mother you are. I can't wait to hear what Medusa has to say on the matter when she visits today." Susan's eyes stretched out of their sockets.

"Medusa is visiting today?" Valeria hid her mouth behind a gloved hand in a fairly ineffective attempt to keep Susan from realizing it was no longer her uncle's antics which fuelled her mirth.

"Mom, you forgot? Aunt Crystal only told you about it three times over the last week. Why do you think we got out bed so fast?" Susan sighed and shook her head in irritation. Yes, she was pregnant, but that didn't mean the world rotated around her all of a sudden.

"Right, right, now I remember, she and Blackbolt are coming over because she's been feeling weird recently and wanted Reed to give her a checkup." Medusa was Crystal's sister, and Queen of the Inhumans. Reed made a small motion with his left hand, and Susan recognized it. It was the one he made when he wanted to check what time it was on his armor's internal chronometer, or as most people called it, clock.

"She said she'd be arriving about an hour from now, I was planning to spend this morning getting the necessary equipment ready but then this came up. Luckily I should still have enough time left if I hurry." Susan nodded towards her husband letting him know it was okay to leave.

"Well then, you best get to work, though I'd be only too glad to pitch in since I'm the reason you're running late in the first place. Johnny, Crystal, I trust you two can look after the kids for a while?" The other pair of adult adults in the room nodded firmly, while Reed offered Susan a bit of unneeded assistance when it came to leaving her seat.

"Of course Susan, I'd be glad to have your help. Okay, you six, if you are on your best behavior while we're busy I'll see to that Aunt Medusa pays you a visit." Without further ado Reed and Susan departed, though Johnny made sure that they were well out of earshot before he spoke.

"So kids, who wants to practice bungie jumping down the elevator shafts?" A dark eyebrow went up and a pair of very deep blue eyes looking deeply into his own was the first response this question garnered.

"Are you sure we'll be able to get away with it?" Johnny as always was never far away from either a smile wide open friendly or a slightly egotistical smirk.

"Please Rachel, this isn't going to be like the time we all went hang gliding together around the city with you providing the glider and Crys providing the right wind conditions. Not only will it be fun, but this time around no witnesses." Benjamin took up the cause and also began to glare skeptically at his uncle.

"You know you weren't the one who got spanked when mom found out about that." Johnny didn't seem concerned in the slightest waving off his nephew's remarks.

"Hey you kids don't even know what corporal punishment means. Trust me I've had enough experience with my elastic sister to know how resilient the seven of you are to any sort of physical trauma. Besides if you couldn't figure it out on your own, when we do this instead of being out there for the entire city to see we'll be indoors, and while Reed does have security cameras in the elevator he only looks at them when we're under attack. Remember, your parents are the ones who always going on about how important it is for you to be practicing your powers. What better way than this to measure just how far you can stretch and how much weight you can comfortably support."

"Did the entire 'training with your powers' excuse ever work for you, Uncle Johnny?"

"Well I haven't been turned into a food processor yet, so that's got to count for something."

----

There were several soft raps on the door to Reed's lab. He glanced toward a particular lever in an offhand sort of a way, and it shifted downwards. It was such a simple thing that an uninformed observer never would have guessed that Reed was making use of the psychic abilities that Mr. Fantastic had honed to a monowire like edge.

Slowly the door to his lab slid open and two of the Fantastic Five's greatest friends walked in. In fact they were more than friends. All things considered Medusa and her husband Blackbolt, the respective Queen and King of the Inhumans, were by nature of Crystal's marriage to Johnny, brother and sister in law to Reed and Susan. Of course despite getting along quite well the four didn't meet very frequently since the Fantastic Five were usually busy being superheroes and raising Susan's children most of the time, while Medusa and Blackbolt were in turn busy ruling their people.

The two together were quite a sight which given that they were a monarch and his queen was par for the course. Blackbolt wore a complicated outfit with white lines running across it that managed to do a fair job of representing lightning.

Medusa managed to possess an even more eye catching appearance, she dressed in a royal purple outfit, and had bright green eyes, but mainly the reason you couldn't avoid noticing her was her hair.

Susan liked her own head of blond hairs that fell down the back of her head to about the level of her breasts in a complicated series of curls, but she was willing to bet there were woman who would have killed to have hair like Medusa's. It fell down to her knees and was a bright red color that Susan would have been sure wasn't natural if the two women hadn't once spent the better part of a month living together.

Not just did she have a lot of beautiful hair, but there was something almost hypnotic about, pieces of it kept twisting this way and that. What made it all the more impress was that this happened to be the least impressive thing that Medusa could achieve using her prehensile hair.

The relationship between the Inhumans and the Fantastic Five was a complicated one, the two groups had fought with one another in the sense of up against, and fought with one another in the sense of side by side, though after an initially rocky first impression they tended to do much more of the later than the former.

Susan stretched her arms so that she could exchange handshakes with the two, though she ended up getting a 'hairshake' from Medusa who was prone to delegating any most trivial formalities to her hairs rather than actually using her hands.

Medusa kicked the conversation off, which was a good thing because Blackbolt had the equivalent of an hydrogen bomb built into his throat, if he whispered he could knock down walls, if he shouted he could level entire mountains, if not mountain ranges.

"You know Reed, you might have been going just a bit too far when you adapted negative barrier technology to your laboratory's walls so that Lockjaw can't teleport directly inside it."

Lockjaw was an Inhuman who after being exposed to the Terrigan Mist the substance that was all source of all the Inhuman's powers had transformed into a giant doglike creature. He had the ability to create portals between just about any two places you could imagine, which was how Medusa and Blackbolt could go from the Great Refuge of the Inhumans to the Baxter Building in about five seconds even though they were on entirely different hemispheres.

"I say the same thing to you that I say so frequently to Susan, it's nothing personal. I just want to make sure that this lab is 100% secure or barring that as the only realistic way to achieve it would be to place it inside the earth's molten core, at least 99.9 repeating towards but not actually reaching infinity percent secure. A fact that's driven home rather pointedly every single time that despite all the double, triple, and quadruple plating I've done, Susan still manages to squeeze her way in. Granted now it takes her about a minute to do it, so if she harbored any villainous intentions that would give the security system plenty of time to activate itself. So now that the pleasantries are out of the way, what seems to be the problem?" Medusa drew in a sharp breath, and from the inner folds of her hair, one strand of it immerged holding some kind of fancy handkerchief that she sneezed into.

"Well I've been a having this sneezing fits fairly recently, so I think I'm pregnant." Susan who had by this point returned her arms to their normal length twisted her neck in a corkscrew to show just how confused she was.

"Umm, Medusa, speaking as a woman who knows a thing or two about pregnancy, I'm pretty sure having sneezing fits means you have a cold, not kids on the way." Medusa for her part suddenly seemed every bit as surprised as Susan.

"Crystal never told you?" Susan returned her neck to its traditional length.

"Told me what?"

"Among Inhumans during her first three months a pregnant woman is prone to sneezes and..." Medusa stooped halfway through the sentence as her voice suddenly uttered a fairly well known onomatopoeia. After inhaling an exhaling three times she finally got around to finishing it.

"Hiccups. Anyway, even though Inhuman technology is miles ahead of yours in some areas, in this one your husband is ahead of us, so I was wondering if you could check and find out for sure if I am pregnant."

Susan Richards was not a woman who had a strong jealous streak in her, but that said, it would have taken a better woman than her to not have glowered in irritation at the Queen of the Inhumans right then and there.

"Medusa, just for the record, you're aware of what 'morning sickness' entails for humans, right?" The ruby haired woman nodded.

"I know Susan, our version of it is what you get when your genetic structure is designed by hands a bit more discriminating than mother nature's. But look on the bright side, I'm about to go through a wringer that you've already come out the other side of." Susan's glower deepened.

"If morning sickness for you means that you need to practice holding your breath, drink lots of water, and keep plenty of Kleenex on hand, then I somehow doubt that it's the exact same wringer I went through. Oh and by the way, apparently I enjoyed said wringer so much the first time around that my body has decided to put me through it again." A storm of Medusa's hairs seized Susan and lifted her up into the air.

"You're pregnant again?!" Susan carefully flowed between the many strands of Medusa's hair and landed on the floor.

"Yep, and it's with eight kids this time. Feel free to heap congratulations and consolations upon me as needed." Medusa did just that.

"So do you have any idea how you pulled it off this time?" Susan sighed.

"If you're asking me if I used some fertility enhancing drugs, nope, this was all natural. That said, I did once use my powers to reduce the scale of my body to the point where I could dance skyclad through the black brush chanting a hymn in praise of my husband's virility directly to the expression of said husband's virility."

An outcropping from Blackbolt's hood that looked sort of like a metal "Y" began to glow with yellow energy as he made a few hand signals. There were a very small number of Inhumans (at least compared to the total number of humans) and so they'd never ended up developing an official sign language, but because it was hard for a sovereign to rule without being able to communicate Blackbolt and Medusa had worked out a complicated series of motions that only his Queen and a few other Inhumans seemed to fully understand. But it worked for them though and so Susan wasn't about to complain. Once he was finished "talking" Medusa translated for her husband.

"Blackbolt says that he wishes you both his greatest blessings, and that its only appropriate that husband and wife who love each other as truly as you two do should be rewarded with many fine children to carry on your family's name." Susan nodded slowly to Blackbolt.

"Yeah, feels like too much of a good thing at the moment but I'm sure I'll be able to love the little darlings once I finish spending the next few months asking them why they couldn't wait their turn to be born one a time. We just found out today that I'm about a month along, and speaking of finding out, Medusa if you think you're pregnant how come you didn't just tell Crystal that when you were setting up this meeting?" Medusa struck one of those regally offended poses that she did so very well.

"Where I come from Susan telling your sister that you're pregnant should always be done face to face. Besides, I wouldn't want to get her hopes up pointlessly on the off chance I'm wrong."

Reed had allowed the two wives to make "girl talk" while he ran through a mental checklist of what equipment he'd need to make use of. "Well then Medusa, if you'll just follow me, pretty soon we should know everything there is to know on the subject of what is going on in your womb."

---

"WHAM!" Alicia Grimm's (who was born Alicia Masters) blue eyes went wide with surprise, even though she'd gone blind fairly early in her life.

"Ben, are we under attack?" Benjamin (though he preferred Ben) Grimm also known as the Dragonfly, quickly wrapped her arms around her comfortably.

"Not a chance Alicia. If we were under attack then right now there would be enough lights, buzzers, sirens, and what not going off to make you think it was the fourth of July. I've got some idea of what we're under but I'll have to check before I know for sure..."

Ben was the only member of the Fantastic Five who wasn't a member of the Storm/Richards family, and he'd been the last member of the team to get married. Even more importantly, while Johnny and Reed had married women who were capable super heroines in their own right, (even if Crystal hadn't tried her hand at it before she started working with the team) Alicia didn't even have all of the normal abilities that most humans possessed, let alone extra ones.

Getting Alicia used to the Baxter Building had been one of the greatest trials the two had gone through, since after managing to memorize the layout of her previous two story home she'd needed to go back to using a cane for a while after moving in until she felt confident working her way around the skyscraper that was the Fantastic Five's headquarters.

Despite her blindness Alicia was had a great memory and was extremely skilled with her hands to the point that she'd been able to make a living for herself as a sculptor, and Reed had been kind enough to set up a studio for her inside the Baxter Building even if it wasn't on the same floor as their shared bedroom.

Ben proceeded to flap the wings which had earned him his superhero name and fly up to the top of the elevator, removed a few panels and took a look at the slightly abashed metal face of Jonathan Storm whose body had landed on top of elevator and left a rather noticeable dent in it.

"Um, hi Ben, Alicia, I really didn't expect you guys to be using the elevator at this time of day." As he spoke Johnny rather frantically tugged on the blue chord that was wrapped around his waist. Said blue chord proved to be remarkably uncooperative however.

"Uncle Johnny, you should know by now I'm not strong enough to lift you upwards on my own...." A moment later the thing began to shift about, proceeding to dump Johnny into the elevator while it took on the appearance of Jane Richards who descended through the device's roof much more gracefully. Ben just sighed heavily looked at the pair of blond haired (or at least as much as Johnny could be considered a blond while in Mandroid form) trouble makers.

"One of you is going to be in a lot of trouble with your mother and one of you is going to be in a lot of trouble with your sister very shortly, I hope I don't need to clarify which is which."

------

Reed checked the lab results one last time before he finally spoke up.

"Well Medusa, you're right, you are clearly pregnant. In fact it looks like twins. They're about two months along, which means if you want to know the sex again before they're born you'll have to come back here a few months down the road." Medusa and Blackbolt exchanged looks and then Medusa's hands reflexively went to her belly.

"Looks like we'll have the traditional 'heir and a spare' taken care of all in one go then." Susan stretching out her left hand to let it rest on Medusa's middle while her right went to her own.

"Yep. It also looks like we're gonna be able to watch each other's figures go all extra, extra, extra curvy together. Heck maybe I'll get to find out just how well you fight when you're pregnant!" Medusa promptly declined that particular offer.

"Not a chance, I picked up my powers pretty early in my life while you've only had yours for a few years and you already managed to best me once. You've probably only gotten better in comparison to me as you acquired more and more experience to go with your natural skill, and I didn't have the handicap of being pregnant last time either." Susan blushed as she snapped her arm back to its natural length.

"You're much too kind Medusa, but I suppose flattery will have to win you something. If you want I can take some time to show you all the various different inventions we humans have come up with to try and make pregnancy a less painful experience. You'd be surprised how many useful things can come out of having a society that seems completely devoted to avoiding any sort of pain or strenuous activity." Before Susan could go any further Ben's voice suddenly chimed in over the room's communication system.

"Reed, Susy, I need to see you two by the elevators." The two who had been called glanced at the speaker and then at their guests, caught between two different sets of priorities.

"Well seeing as you've gotten the information you originally came here for... I trust you can see yourselves out and have Lockjaw transport you back home?" Both Blackbolt and Medusa just smiled and nodded, this time neither of them bothered to actually speak.

------

Susan listened to the less than convincing protestation of innocence and the general passing of the buck for close to a half a minute before she finally responded to them vocally.

"Okay that's it, I've heard enough. Johnny, I'll admit that this is considerably smarter than your last surprise plan for testing out my children's powers since at least this time you kept them on the Baxter Building's premises. However, you should have asked our permission first, checked to make sure no one was going to be using the elevators, and most importantly should have come up with a way to do it that would let all six get involved at once rather than leaving five of them constantly waiting for another turn.

So here's what we're going to do instead, first we send the elevator's to the top floor so that we don't cause any more property damage to them. Then Jane is going to wrap her arms around you, have Crystal make sure my daughter's legs as securely tied to something that can support your weight. At which point I'm going to push you down the shaft you're currently standing in front of.

Then because I don't trust any of my children's to be able to actually stop the descent of several hundred pounds of metal, Valeria is going to stretch herself out as a trampoline for you to land on twenty stories above the ground. At which point, because my powers have taught me plenty about how Newton's Third Law works, Franklin is going to stretch himself out and cover the shaft twentyone stories above the ground when he sees you go past, so that you slam of him on your way back up instead of possibly getting catapulted into the underside of the elevator.

So then you'll bounce back and forth between those two for a while until Jane feels that he's killed off enough momentum and lets you go. At which point Valeria you roll yourself up and let Benjamin catch him ten stories above the ground. Sound like fun?" There were a great many different answers that could be given to a question like that, especially when asked in Susan's particular tone of voice, but Johnny knew exactly what to say when his sister had found about him doing something stupid (especially involving her kids) halfway through.

"Whatever you say, sis." Of course one of the children who hadn't been mentioned did care to weigh in on the issue.

"So what exactly are Rachel and I supposed to do?" Susan stretched out a hand and stroke Samantha's hair.

"Well here's a reason why the Baxter Building has two elevator shafts. While Uncle Johnny is busy using one of them, I'm going to secure my legs around something nice and stable, my arms around your father and he'll jump down the other one. At which point I expect you to catch us twenty stories above the ground and you to catch us on the way back up Rachel. I'll, of course, be perfectly capable of making sure that once we've killed off most of our momentum he makes it to the ground okay by myself. Think you're up to it?" Both her blond and black haired daughter who that question could have been addressed to remained silent.

"Great then why don't the five of you scamper off to the necessary positions while I help your father into his armor, he'll give you a telepathic 'call' you when we're ready to go."

----

Several hours later that night Susan and Reed had after tucking their children into bed retired to their own place of rest.

"So now that we're finally alone, it might be a good time to go over what I meant this morning when I use the phrase 'flashy super heroics' just to make sure we're both on the same page." Susan blushed slightly as she removed the top half of her uniform, her face coloring from thoughts of her past rather than the actions of the moment.

"Let me guess, elevator bungie jumping doesn't strike you as a reasonable family activity for a pregnant woman?" Reed just looked at her saying nothing and Susan sighed as she sat down on their bed.

"Yeah I know. Sorry if I railroaded you into it, but the idea just suddenly occurred to me and I felt it was too appropriate not to use. The kids had fun, nobody got hurt, and hopefully thanks to the smile he saw on my face when I pushed him into that elevator shaft Johnny learned a lesson. Reed gently removed and placed the upper half of his uniform on a nightstand alongside their bed before responding.

"That more or less sums it up pretty well." Susan looked up at the ceiling for a moment then rolled over onto her side smiling all the while. "I know that being one month along I should probably be feeling tired and what not, but for some reason right I just feel like I could start bouncing off the walls of this place and never stop." Reed playfully ran a hand through Susan's hair.

"Well, I've always said that you were one of a kind even before you got your powers." Susan nodded wistfully, despite her exuberant words there seemed to be a great burden pressing down on her.

"Yeah there's that. It could also be because if I'm perfectly honest, not to demean all the other stuff I've done as both a super heroine and a mother in the past, I still feel like being pregnant was quite possibly the best nine months of my life. I mean to start with the two of us were more or less firing on all cylinders for the first time: we got married, I really got my confidence as a super heroine. Corny as it sounds, it was the first time in my life when I really felt like an Ultra Woman." Reed gently kissed his wife on the lips.

"I'll agree, but I don't see your pregnancy as the best time of my life. I see it as the period over which we built up a certain amount of 'momentum' for lack of a better way to describe it, and we've been coasting on and adding to it when necessary ever since." Susan nodded in agreement.

"Yeah I see your point." She paused for a moment and smiled.

"As juvenile as it sounds, we really do rock at this super heroing thing. I mean think about all the stuff we've accomplished. We've been in the business for seven years and to start with, none of us have died. I know it might sound like I'm setting the bar a little low, but don't you think it might have been just a bit on the nose when Jean Grey decided to change her name from Marvel Girl to Phoenix? I mean she's been 'dead' what, twice now? Yes she came back both times, but all things considered I'll be perfectly happy to eventually have a tombstone with only one date of death on it, not that I want one any time soon. I'm not jinxing myself, am I?" Reed shook his head answering her smile with one of his own.

"I'm pretty sure luck and superstition barely enter into it, Susan. We've all managed to gain a considerable amount of experience using our powers, working as a team, not to mention it's gotten to the point where I'm pretty sure that there's nothing which could take me truly by surprise any more. I could be wrong, of course, but I won't know till I am."

Susan's smile grew even larger as she thought back to all the things they'd accomplished. The Fantastic Five were easily New York's most loved and respected superhero team, not just because they could always be counted on to save the day; but because they'd forgone the secret identities which were usually standard operating procedure for superheroes, and regardless of the countless other tasks he generally had on his plate Reed still managed to find time to develop and file patents for a considerable number of inventions which the common man was quite appreciative of. Susan reached out and took Reed's hands and opened mouth using an elongated tongue to lick a few strands of his black hair.

"Hey Reed, can you guess what part of being pregnant with eight kids I'm most worried about?" Reed shook his head and Susan gently guided his hands to her breasts which were still covered by her unstable molecule bra.

"These." Reed leaned forward and planted a tender kiss on his wife's neck.

"Why are you worried about your breasts?"

"Well, as you pointed out way back then, because of my powers even a six child pregnancy didn't do much to my figure. But it did make my breasts bigger, even after I stopped lactating regularly. So this pregnancy is bound to give them even more a boost, and by the time the process is over I think I'll look sort of ridiculous. After all, there's a fine line between being a knockout, and having "FF" describe not just what team I belong to but also my cup size.

I know you won't mind, and since I don't actually have a spine don't need to worry about back problems down the line... but still.... I know I once said that by conventional wisdom there are certain parts of the male and female anatomy that can't possibly be too large, but imagine walking around all day with a member so long that you can tuck it into your sock. Yes I'd enjoy because I'm elastic but to your conventional woman it'd probably be something of a turn off." Reed began to slowly and gently remove Susan's bra.

"Well Susan modern plastic surgery can be used to reduce a woman's breast size, not just increasing it.. Though I suggest we more or less bide our time on that particular subject and see how you feel about our bosom after you've actually given birth and our children have finished nursing." Susan moan softly as Reed began to gently massage said bosom while continuing the conversation.

"Besides, there are a great many other possible solutions for that particular problem. I could probably play around in my lab for a couple hours and create an unstable molecule sports bra that would you make them look smaller and be more manageable while you wear it. Or you could just use your powers to make them look smaller when you're in the public eye." For the second time that day something Reed had said left Susan laughing so hard that tears streamed from her eyes, though this time she didn't bother trying to hide how humorous she found his suggestion.

"Sorry Reed, it was the irony that got to me. I mean usually the transition from mild mannered housewife to super heroine involves the woman trying to make her breasts look bigger instead of smaller. I could be wrong, but how many other women do you know, who feel a pressing need to reduce the size of the bosom when they go out to fight crime?" Reed proceeded to lick one of her nipples eliciting a very deep cooo from Susan's throat.

"Well that could be because you've 'stacked' the deck in your favor to say the least. How many other super heroines do you know who have children?" Certainly Susan didn't know of any who had more (or even as many) as children as she had, not even counting the ones she was going to be having a year from now.

"Not many, but then it probably helps that between how brilliant you are and how much money the team has because of how brilliant you are, we've got access to the best child care in the world. Though still, it's gonna be damn near impossible to be a mother to fourteen kids and a super heroine." In response to this particular statement Reed simply leaned forward and kissed her once on the cheek.

"That's also a task we won't have to worry about for another few months giving us both ample time to plan for it. As things stand, let's just try not to let our worries about the future get in the way of enjoying today." Susan kissed her husband back, on the lips, with plenty of tongue.

"You saying that is yet more unneeded proof that you're way smarter than me."


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Well it's finally done, after much delay part of it my fault (being lazy working on side projects) part of it my editor's fault (do you want it done fast, right or cheep, pick two) part of it just bad luck in general.

Anyway the next chapter of Second Stretches is finally ready. Once again I am deeply, deeply in need of comments in order to validate the time I spent working on this particular project so please please PLEASE review!

Also I'll come right out and say right now that part of this chapter was written before I had the idea for Original Twist and thus in retrospect isn't nearly as creative or interesting as it should have been... Well hopefully you guys will still enjoy it PLEASE ENJOY IT...

Second Stretches Chapter two: Lessons, in which Susan Richards tells her children a bed time story.

Time passed (as it has a habit of doing) and a month later or so the big day came, the very first time that Reed would be trying his hand at homeschooling their children. While he was busy doing that his wife was busy with, nothing...

Susan Richards sat and thought, and sat, and thought, and sat and thought, and that was about it. The last thing her kids needed right now was her hesitantly looking over their shoulders. She'd helped Reed make sure the lesson plan was suitable for children their age, and while he evidently trusted himself to be impartial towards them, Susan doubted she'd be capable of the same.

So much like she had during some of her first days in school she predominantly passed the time by watching the clock. Once or twice she took off one of her gloves and looked at her nails. They were all but perfectly clean, though she managed to kill a few seconds extracting every speck of dirt she could find from them, using her powers to push the stuff out into the open rather than the more traditional approach.

That task completed Susan rubbed her belly. She was already starting to show slightly. But then she'd started to show at this point with only (if that word was appropriate given the context of sextuplets) six, so it was no surprise she was showing after the same amount of time now that it was eight.

She leaned back and sighed. Her children were with Reed; Reed was with her children. There wasn't anything going wrong with the world at the moment, so what the hell was she suppose to do with her time?

Eventually she managed to find a certain amount of peace by reclining her chair and slowly running through every memory she had of her children, from conception, to giving birth, to today. Once she'd done that she opened her eyes again and sighed. She was still alone.

Just as she was considering trying to curl herself into a small enough ball to comprehend her unborn children's heart beats, she suddenly heard the wonderfully familiar sound of elastic bodies bouncing up and down the hallways, and warmth flowed through her. Sure enough in a scant few moments later with Samantha leading the pack entered the room who one and all had smiles upon their faces. Granted Jane's seemed to be edging its way into smirk territory. "That was school? Not exactly the most exciting four hours of my life but I don't see what the big deal is."

Susan looked once more at the clock and saw how early it was. Somehow Susan doubted that they her children had simply finished their lessons ahead of schedule and slowly the feeling of warm contentment drained from her body. This prophecy was promptly fulfilled by the very first words out of her husband's mouth when he entered the room. "Sue, would you mind coming with me? I need to talk to you about something..."

At once their children were paying much closer attention to what was going on than they probably had back in the classroom staying very still and remaining silent, except for Jane at least. "You guys know what that tone of voice means..."

Benjamin nodded, rolling his eyes in the process. "Yeah, it means that mom and dad have to go save the day again."

Rachel threw in her own quick nod as she simultaneously stroked her chin. "So what should we do until the explosions and aftershocks stop this time?"

Unlike most parents Reed Richards did not seem particular upset that his children had seen right through his attempts at deceiving them. "The same as always. Head to Aunt Alicia's salon, and she'll make sure nothing bad happens to you."

A chorus of dejected moans arose, but the children obeyed orders, though it wasn't till Susan was sure they were out of ear shot did she asked the question that had been waiting within her since his arrival. "So what exactly do we have to worry about today?"

Reed looked at her, and Susan knew that this wasn't going to be an easy mission. "Well I just got a call. Apparently some green skinned alien that could change its size at will was just spotted robbing a bank downtown. When the police opened up on it the thing apparently transformed it skin into a dense metal causing the bullets to bounce right of it."

Sure enough Susan's eyes went wide. "You don't think that the Super Skrull could be back? Jeez, first pregnancy and now this. I guess it just goes to show that the more things change the more they stay the same, not that I need a lot of additional proof where that axiom is concerned after living for a decade or two with Johnny..."

-----

"So who exactly is the Super Skrull?" The entire team was now on board the Fantasticar (and Reed was now dressed in his high tech armor which thanks to improvements on its previous owner's (the same person who happened to be the previous owner of his body) designs now held enough firepower to more or less take on a division of tanks, even if it looked incredibly anachronistic) and zooming in the direction of the recently robbed bank, hoping to find some clue as to the location of the alien responsible.

"Well, Crystal, as I'm sure you remember, the skrulls are shapeshifting aliens that we've encountered a few times before. But back when the team was still less than a year old the skrulls created what they thought was the ultimate warrior. He was genetically engineered so as to be able to make use of all of our powers. Needless to say we weren't able to beat him a straight up fight, but luckily we were able to cut him off from source of energy fueling his powers. I thought we had gotten rid of him permanently after that, but then he wouldn't be the first of our foes to have proven remarkably resilient."

It was at this point that Ben joined in, bringing the voice of experience to bear as always. "Which brings the question why are we in such a hurry to go pick another fight with him when instead you could have gotten to work whipping up another one of those fancy gadgets we used to depower him the last time around?"

Reed's face slid into a confident smile as he examined the Fantasticar's controls. "Because this time he evidently isn't willing to just sit around waiting for us to come up with the right technological trinket to defeat him with. Also, while we might lack a specially prepared device we do have another sort of ace up our sleeve. Even though the Super Skrull still has all the powers of the Fantastic Four, the Fantastic Five have Crystal on their side."

As usual Johnny seemed to consider it his god given duty to interrupt as many of Reed's speeches as possible. "Hey, flattering Crys is supposed to be my job! By the way on a completely unrelated topic, you're looking even better today than usual Crystal, though that may just be because my sister is starting to puff up like a balloon filled with babies that won't burst for another few months."

The Inhuman herself wasn't letting praise go to her head. "That's nice both of you, but what makes me so special this time around?"

Reed looked over out of the clear dome over his seat as if double checking his equipment's finding by eye. "Because Crystal, neither Super Skrull's elasticity or metallic skin will be able to protect him against freezing. If you can lower the temperature around him enough while we distract him, then we should be able to 'put him on ice' in no time."

The sound of Johnny's hand (he hadn't transformed into his metal Mandroid form yet) slamming into his seat's roof could be heard echoing through the Fantasticar. "Quick show of hands, everyone else who saw that particular lame pun coming a mile away? Anyone at all?"

Before he could take an accurate tally Reed brought the Fantasticar to a stop. "I think we've reached our destination given the crowd of frightened looking civilians. Though I must saw given the Super Skrull's previous actions if he is back, he seems to have changed his operating procedure rather drastically. He's gone from demanding all of humanity's surrender to robbing banks and scaring people at a fancy restaurant."

Johnny shrugged as the ship touched down and he pushed back the dome above his seat and got out. "So maybe his stay as a cow at the funny farm we gave him left him a little loopy? All I know is that we've got ourselves some alien butt to kick!"

-----

After entering into the restaurant that was now apparently deserted by all but the staff and one being who probably wasn't from earth, the Fantastic Five were left with several questions, one of which Susan brought to the front as she carefully eyed the situation before them. "Reed, unless my pregnancy forgetfulness is kicking in really early, I somehow doubt that's the Super Skrull."

Yes the alien did in fact have green skin, but that was about where the similarity ended. Instead of armor he had on only some kind of bizarre purple one piece outfit that seemed designed to combine a jacket with a pair of shorts. Also his head was just a bit too large for his body, and it was rather noticeably a strange sort of ovaloid shape that came to point at the top more or less. Then there was the fact that he was sitting at a table which was covered with food and two large bags of money.

"I think you're right Susan..."

Looks were exchanged amount the teammates and then Johnny gently nudged Reed's back. "You're the super smart guy who knows what people are going to do before they do it or say before they say it, you go talk to him." Susan was actually a little stunned that her brother needed to offer any kind of incentive or explanation to her husband. She would have expected him to be glad for a chance to make contact with any new kind of alien.

But you could only run into so many aliens who seemed to inevitably turn out to be bent on conquering (if not flat out consuming) the earth until even the most strident scientist's idealism gave way to practical paranoia. But there was more to it than that, Susan couldn't help but think that the green alien seemed to radiate a veritable aura of strangeness about it, not only that it hadn't come from Earth, but that it couldn't possibly belong on Earth.

But still, very slowly Reed approached the alien and coughed slightly. "Do you mind explaining what's going on here?" As he asked the question his eyes focused on the two large bags full of money (complete with the "$" sign that Susan had thought only existed in comic books) rather than the food.

The alien offered a big friendly smile and spoke up, his voice rather high and childlike. "Sure, I've just arrived from planet Poppup in the tenth galaxy! I was hungry but these guys I met said that if I was going to get some food I'd need to get some money. Luckily they were kind enough to point me in the direction of the... bank they called it, where I could get some! Of course some mean people tried to get in my way, I must say that you earthlings have some very strange customs!" Without further ado he proceeded to take a very large bite out of the watermelon on his table.

It took Reed a few moments to contemplate this answer then looked back at his teammates as if for a moment even he was stumped. "And why exactly did you come here?" Was the question that he eventually went with, one that had preciously little bearing on the stolen loot that could only have been more obvious if there was a flashing neon sign (complete with light up arrow) announcing its presence.

The green alien just smiled. "Well the planet Poppupian is a very exciting place, a little too exciting at times honestly. You see it's so exciting that the only way we can be at all safe there is to be constantly changing. So I decided to just change myself into a rocket ship and blast off towards some place new for a little vacation. Your world was the only planet in this galaxy that looked like there was anything worth doing on it."

It was at this point in the conversation that Johnny decided joined to join in. "Okay, you know what? I think I've heard just about enough of this. If we had to listen to the sob story of every single alien who came to earth and broke the law then we'd never have any free time. Why don't you give the money back to us so we can give it back to the bank, now."

The green alien proved that some gestures truly are universal by blowing a long raspberry at Susan's brother. "You want this 'money' then you take it, because I'm gonna need the rest of this stuff to buy myself some more food when I get hungry again!"

Johnny pulled back his fist, a smirk twitching at his lips. "Well since you asked for it." However as he brought his fist forward, all of a sudden the green alien had sprouted countless spines that Johnny's fist collided with leaving him shaking his arm in pain.

The spikes retracted as quickly as they had come, leaving the one who had previously possessed them smiling profusely. "What's the matter, did you find yourself in something of a thorny dilemma?"

Just like Susan had expected Johnny's usual barge right in and start knocking heads together approach hadn't worked out very well, in fact he beat a quick retreat to his own wife's side. "Damn it I can't get these stupid things to come out!" He tugged and tugged at the thorns, but much like a porcupine's quills they seemed to have some kind of latch which prevented them from being torn free. Luckily Crystal needed only one look at the problem to come up with a solution.

She carefully pressed her gloved hands along the thorns (careful to avoid their protruding points) and very slowly they turned from brown to a snowy whitish color as they froze. Johnny caught on and waited patiently until all of the offending prickers had been iced over before she slammed the backs of his hands together.

The frozen thorns immediately shattered into a small collection of ice chips which fell to the floor at his feet. Even more luckily the alien who had put those thorns in her brother had simply gone back to eating peacefully. The pierced sections of Johnny's hands almost automatically began to "scab" over as new metal began to grow, though it was clear that he wasn't about to try his luck again.

"Sis?" In another setting Susan would have laughed, given that the plaintive tone and wide puppy dog eyes which accompanied the question would have been more appropriate if her brother had been bout two decades younger and asking her to fetch him something on a high shelf, rather than asking her to attack one very strange extra terrestrial.

Not that Susan needed to begged in order to do her job, Ultra Woman stretched out her body and very calmly wove herself around the unconcerned alien like a giant blue blanket, dragging him out of his chair and onto the floor. She felt her captive struggle against her grasp for a few seconds and then go still.

Unfortunately his going still was promptly followed by the body she was wrapped around seeming to shift around inside of her into something much more angular than it had been previously, a shape that she couldn't help but think felt familiar. Then suddenly a loud roar echoed inside the living cage Susan had turned herself into and a few moments after that she found herself getting literally rocketed around the room by the alien contained within her.

Sure enough the fact that he could turn his own body into a ship capable of crossing the distance between planets had become painfully obvious. Also surprisingly the type of vessel he had turned into belched forth flames to provide thrust just like any human craft. Flames that ate away at Susan's cohesion until she had melted into a cerulean colored pile of goop that the alien was easily able to free himself from.

He then bent down and picked up a handful of Susan's body giggling as she flowed through his fingers. "What a strange creatures you earthlings are! Not only are you all different from each other, but you're really, really different! Hmm..." Then before Susan's eye's he transformed into some kind of creature that she could only describe as being a three trunked elephant.

One of those trunks promptly proceeded to suck up Susan's melted form into it like a superpowered vacuum cleaner. Inside the creature that the alien had turned into everything went dark. She felt the world shifting around her pulling, tugging, and playing with her body which was still somehow melted enough to be stretched out and kept her from properly resisting the strange process.

She thought she could vaguely make out the sounds of the other's voices, but it wasn't easy to hear when she couldn't form anything that properly resembled ears. So the process continued.

Her dark world with no shapes and no clear sounds was timeless until a few words range through her head loud and clear. "You want her back? All right, have her. AHHH, AHHH, AAAHHH, CHOOO!" The creature "sneezed" Susan back out, and yet she'd been pulled tugged and twisted to such a degree that inside the large monster she'd grown from being the size of a puddle to a veritable tidal wave.

Susan didn't so much bowl over as absorb her teammates like olives trapped within a brick of jello. For her part she was left looking upside down at the cackling green alien who had returned to what he evidently considered normal. He pointed at the giant mish mash of super hero and heroine flesh that he had created. "Oh wow, I'm gonna have a lot of fun on this planet!" Then he proceeded to promptly amble out of her range of vision.

For a few moments Susan had nothing to occupy her mind but the feelings of numerous bodies awkwardly struggling against her to win their way free from her. This was a sensation guaranteed to cause a case of déjà vu for a woman who had carried sextuplets within her for the better of a year. Then she got her head screwed on right and realized what needed to be done. "Crystal, wherever you are turn up the heat."

She felt the flames summoned by the elemental controlling Inhuman spread within her quickly (which was good because for a few moments she had worried that her teammates might end up drowning inside her) and Susan promptly went from corn starch to quicksand to a puddle on the ground exactly where she'd been to start with, though at least her teammates were free. "A cool breeze would be appreciated..." She told her sister in law as Susan struggled to pull herself back together.

For the third time since they'd entered the restaurant Crystal obliged. Thanks to plenty of practice she knew just how cool to make it to help get Susan recover from being melted without freezing her.

Once everyone had fully recovered from that particular scuffle Ben took stock of their situation. "Well that experience isn't exactly going to have a cherished place in my members."

Johnny shrugged as he shook a few flecks of his sister's body from his hands that hadn't fallen off on their own. "I don't know. I'm sure the kids will get a laugh out of hearing about how their mother was turned into weapons grade snot." Susan shrugged off that particular comment in favor of trying to track down the alien who had so humiliated her. It wasn't hard given that he was about as easy to find as an elephant in a wheat field. He left the restaurant not so much through its back entrance as through its back wall, apparently having transformed his body into some kind of living buzz saw in the process. Thankfully this hadn't undermined the building's structural integrity in the process.

Once Susan was able to squeeze herself through that particular pile of debris (the others behind held up while Johnny and Reed worked to make a proper human sized hole in the rubble) she found the alien was looking straight ahead at the considerable number of people who had stopped and gasped at him when he'd come slicing his way through the wall.

Then he suddenly 'rotated' to face Susan, it wasn't so much that he twisted his body about the way she could her own. This was a much less fluid transformation, like someone bending the limbs on a child's toy into a new position, leaving Susan quite grateful that the transformation wasn't accompanied by any particular sound effects.

"Oh good you're here!" He said to Susan as if completely forgetting everything the two had done to each other only a few minutes ago. "What's up with all of them? Why didn't they do whatever it is they do that makes them special instead of just standing around?" Susan looked at the strange little green alien and despite what he'd already done to her.

She couldn't help but feel a perverse sort of pity. "Not everyone on this planet has special powers in fact very few of us have them."

It was at this point the Popupian eyes popped right out of his skull, before snapping back in. "Oh really? Then how do you explain all of these people?" He was pointing at the traffic.

If he hadn't already shown his ability to more or less effortlessly get the better of the entire Fantastic Five Susan would have actively buried her face in her hands. "Those are cars, vehicles. Regular people, people without powers drive them around to get from place to place more quickly."

The alien examined the fast moving traffic for a moment and then there was a glimmer in his eyes, the kind of glimmer that if Susan had seen in her brother eyes she would have curled herself into a very small ball until things were done exploding and all the fires had been put out. "So you mean that anyone can control one of those things? They look I like fun, I want to try!" Sure enough Susan knew that this particular situation wasn't going to end well. The alien promptly transformed into some kind of weird combination of wolverine and rhinoceros which then ambled out into traffic headed towards the first car in sight.

Said car just so happened to be a taxicab that was cruising for passengers. Now while New York cabbies were rather notoriously stiff necked, the fact that this one chose to abandon his vehicle rather than stick it out was hardly surprising. Of course once he was out of the way the monster reverted to being a harmless if mischievous looking green alien who took the wheel firmly in both hands. He wasn't quite sure what to do after that however.

"Wow, so many buttons and levers!" He began to search for how to control the vehicle through trial and error, pressing buttons and yanking levers. For the moment all he achieved was managing to amp up the air conditioning, start the window shield wipers and change the radio station.

Susan increased her eyesight to a point where she could confirm her own worst fears about the situation, that the taxicab's driver had unfortunately left the keys in there, and it was only a matter of time until by sheer random chance its new 'owner' figured out how to get it to work.

While Susan was trying to think of what to do next, the wall that her friends were being kept behind more or less completely and utterly shattered. This was probably due to the fact that Crystal had apparently frozen it while Susan hadn't been looking.

"Well chalk this up to one more thing I've seen yet refuse to believe during my career as a superhero. I mean what kind of alien who can turn his body into a spaceship comes to earth then decides to jack a car, and a beat up cab at that! I mean seriously he could have at least chosen something with a little class, Roles Royce, Ferarri, Lamborugehni...." Before her brother could go on with the list, a key was turned and an engine revved.

"YE--HAAA I FOUND IT!" The alien put his foot down hard on the pedal, causing the taxicab to start going fast, in reverse. He spun the wheel around displaying an almost uncanny amount of luck or skill and managed to shift it into drive, just in time to zoom through a red light and make an illegal turn, in the process instantly causing two fender benders as other people swerved to get out of his way.

Now it was Ben's turn to make what he considered a wry comment considering their very unfortunate situation. "You know if he turned on his blinkers, sounded the horn, and gave somebody the finger I wouldn't be able to tell him apart from any other cabbie in this city."

Susan twisted her neck around to shoot a glare at him. "So are we all just going to stand around watching an alien going for a joyride? Don't answer that. I'm going to go try doing some actual superheroing." Then she promptly stretched out her arms and grabbed hold of the bumper of the hijacked taxicab. A moment later sure enough Susan was yanked right off of her feet, and she began to shorten the length of her limbs pulling herself closer to her goal.

/Susan, be careful this alien's power is....\ While she appreciated the mental warning Reed was giving her, she particularly feel it was anywhere close to necessary.

/Like nothing we've ever encountered before? Well not exactly 'nothing' but clearly for the most part way out of our league? Yeah, I've noticed that already on my own.... still, let's see if I can't slow him down a bit...\ Now that she didn't need to bother with having a conversation in her head, she began to stretch out her legs, and proceeded bounce them off of the ground, throwing herself upwards, letting go of the car's back bumper.

Before the vehicle was able to speed away from her Susan's arms shot out and grabbed hold of its front fender. She let gravity and a little creative control of her body do the rest, and it wasn't long till her she was spread across the offending car's window shield like a great blob of blue gunk that was completely and utterly impenetrable.

Of course the green alien promptly figured out the rather obvious solution of leaning out the driver's side window, though rather than looking at the road he chose instead to focus on Susan, something he could have done just fine from the inside of the car. "Oh, hey, it's you again! By the way, what's your name?"

Susan promptly reformed arms and legs and stretched them out grabbing hold of a nearby pair of lampposts. In seconds Susan had become a giant vertical rubber mat, which curled itself around the car. That curling was important, since otherwise Ultra Woman would end up catapulting a considerable chunk of medal halfway across the city. Once the car had finally stopped bouncing around inside her body she finally spoke up. "Susan Richards, and you are?"

The green alien looked at her for a moment like she was one hundred percent crazy. "Please, back on planet Poppup we all know each other's names. Now then, why do you have to keep spoiling my fun?" As he spoke the nameless alien proceeded to more or less shoot right out of the cab like a cannon ball. For her part, Susan gently placed the car on into an unoccupied parking space so that traffic could resume like there wasn't a crazy alien on the loose.

Once she had finished taking care of the car she looked around and discovered that the alien was now floating overhead, and once again her teammates were catching up with her.

"If you won't let me have fun down there, I'll just go see what fun I can have up here!" By this point the rest of the team once more had managed to catch up with Susan.

"Well at least now he isn't causing massive amounts of property damage, though we're still not any closer to stopping him. I don't suppose you managed to get the name of the alien so that you could exchange insurance information down the road."

Susan shook her head, for some reason at the moment she was more upset about her failure to ascertain the alien's name than her success at stopping his joyride. "Not really, in fact I don't think he's even really got a name."

Johnny looked up at the alien who was of course by this point engaged in an aerial game of tag with Ben. "Okay then, you know what? Let's call him Impossible Man until one you can come up with anything better."

Apparently Susan wasn't the only one feeling a bit bent out of shape, since at this point Reed actually stamped his armor covered foot on the ground hard enough to crack the concrete slightly. "Let's spend more time trying to come up with a plan of how to defeat him and less what to call him."

Susan shrugged slightly as she looked at her husband. "Well I'm fresh out of ideas, and its typically your job to think the team out of problems. At the moment all we've got going for us is that clearly he isn't trying to kill us, otherwise we probably wouldn't even be standing here...."

/INCOMING! NEED A LANDING PAD NOW!\ Susan and Crystal looked and saw that the Impossible Man had somehow managed to outfox Ben and send him plummeting towards the ground. Crystal at once used her air manipulating powers to create an updraft beneath him. Meanwhile Susan extended her hands and curling them into a protective sphere about his body.

Of course the residual energy he brought with him meant that her limbs still were forced to slam against the ground, though when she opened up her palms he was intact in body if not in ego.

"You know one of these days I'm gonna have to go the extra mile to get some air bags installed so I don't need you two lovely ladies to soften up my crash landings."

The Impossible Man flapped a little bit closer to the ground, a wide smile on his face as he commented upon Susan's reflection. "Of course I wouldn't want to hurt any of you, if I did then who I would have to play with?"

For just a brief moment Susan understood how her husband must feel more or less around the clock since an absolutely brilliant idea had occurred to her. "Okay you know what, time out..." Just to drive her point home Susan proceeded to make the necessary gesture by pressing fingers of her vertically held right hand into the underside of her flat horizontal left hand to create a "T" symbol. "I'm going to take my superheroine suit for a moment and put my mother apron on."

Almost at once Johnny placed his hands over his head firmly enough that the sound of metal clanging on metal filled the air around them for a moment. "Please, please, please tell me that you're speaking metaphorically. Because first of all I didn't know that you even had an official 'mom' apron and second of all I don't want to live in a world, or at least live in the city that was saved by my sister dancing around skyclad."

Susan momentarily glanced at Crystal who nodded making it clear where her brother had picked up his most recent euphuism. "Yes I was speaking metaphorically. Now then, everybody lean close because I'd like to only explain this once." Sure enough just like she expected the Impossible Man proceeded to lean in close as well, and when Susan shoved him away with an elongated arm he allowed her to.

The key to winning any game was that you had to know what rules your opponent was playing by. And so Susan explained her plan to deal with the city's newest pest and then they got to work enacting it. Step one was to get back in the Fantasticar and fly home.

----

"What are you doing?" With a sound like a balloon popping the Impossible Man suddenly came into being.

"Ben, who is it?" Alicia suddenly went very still and her husband didn't move in the slightest having already assumed the necessary statue still pose of one who was having a statue made of them.

"Just a bit of business that followed me home. Don't worry. He isn't dangerous, just go back to work." Alicia slowly nodded her hands alternating between the statue she was sculpting, and Ben's body. Seeing that he wasn't about to get any attention this way the Impossible Man suddenly transformed his hands into green sledgehammers and raised them over one of the countless tiny statues that littered Alicia's salon. Ben smirked at the small alien's antics.

"Go right ahead. Those are nothing but cheap duplicates of her more impressive works." Ben then broke his pose to pick a folder up off of his wife's desk and hurled it at their visitor who reverted his hands back to normal so he could catch it.

"If you want to find the genuine article then here's a manifest of everything that she's sold in the last fiscal year, feel free to make a treasure hunt out of it." The alien looked at the folder, weighed it in his hands, and then didn't even bother to answer, vanishing as quickly as he had come. Ben nodded calmly at this particular turn of events.

"And problem solved, for us at least."

---

"Hey, what are you doing?"

Reed looked up from the computer that he had been entering data into. "Working."

In an instant the Impossible Man was seated splay legged across Reed's keyboard. "On what?" Rather than trying to type with the uninvited guest in the way, Reed sat back and pressed a small button on his armor causing a small computer screen to pop out of said armor. The keyboard attached to said screen was too fine for your average human fingers to manipulate, but when you were telekenetic there was no such thing as too small an area for you to influence.

"Trying to create a new theory about how the universe works based on everything the Fantastic Five has learned. Not to mention I'm cataloguing information on all the various races we've discovered either in outer space, the negative zone, or other unexplored sections of our own world. I don't suppose you'd be willing to be interviewed for the section on Popupians? Do you have any sort of organized religion?"

In an instant the Impossible Man was gone, and beneath his armor's mask Reed smiled.

----

"What are you doing?"

Johnny looked up at the Impossible Man and grinned before raising an eyebrow. "Well given that me and Crystal are done saving the day we were thinking about spending some time relaxing together. Trust me, you won't want to watch. You can if you want to, though you'll only end up learning what I did years ago. It takes more than superpowers to protect you against neurosis's." A moment later he was gone and Johnny turned his gaze to Crystal.

"See, that guy may be more powerful and more immature than me, but that doesn't mean that he can beat me at chicken!"

----

"What are you doing?"

Susan looked up at the Impossible Man and then down at her offspring. "Well, I was just about to tell my kids a bed time story. By the way, I don't care what you're here for. Ultra Woman has checked out for the day. I'm officially Susan Richards and only Susan Richards. If you're going to go and out and try to destroy New York or wreck general havoc then there are plenty other superheroes and superheroines in the city who will probably step up to the plate to try and stop you. Now then, kids what form do you want me to take while I tell you your story?"

Proving that they'd obviously been comparing notes while Susan had been out and about six voices made the same request. "Snake!" Susan nodded calmly and began to lengthen out her lower body curling it around and around creating a copious set of coils that her children promptly began to climb all over burning off much of their excess energy before finally settling down.

Susan took this as a signal to begin telling her tale, even though she couldn't help but look upwards at the Impossible Man who was floating around the ceiling listening intently just like her children.

"Okay then, once upon a time there was a magical realm. It was ruled by a wise king and his devoted queen, who made sure that the land was prosperous, and the law was just and in turn justly enforced. All was well under their rule and for the kindness with which they treated their subjects they were blessed with two children. First a beautiful daughter who was wise and mature beyond her years, and a handsome son who was, less wise and mature but in possession of a good heart.

But then one day disaster struck. While the King and Queen were out going for a ride about their estates a flock of birds startled their horses, and the Queen who was not as good a rider as her husband was thrown by her mount. The King did everything within his power to try and save her, but it was not enough, and she perished.

Worse, with the Queen's death a pall fell over the mind of the King. In the year that followed he was taken by all manner of charlatans who claimed to be able to bring his departed Queen back to him, but in the end only stole much of the land's treasury before vanishing never to be heard from again.

One night the King himself awoke, beheld the fool he'd become in a mirror. He in turn departed from his own lands never to be heard from again, perhaps to try and seek for himself some way of being reuniting with his lost love. But with his departure the young Princess was appointed ruler of land, a task far beyond even her skills. Luckily, the Princess' aunt was willing to serve as her regent..."

"Regent?"

Valeria glowered at Benjamin for interrupting the story. "It means someone who acts as a ruler, because the person who should be in charge can't for some reason. Right, Mom?"

Susan nodded (mildly surprised that it been Valeria rather than Rachel who had been first to instruct her brother on the obscure word's meaning) before continuing the story.

"So time passed, and without the king's excesses a small measure of prosperity returned to the land. But even on her 20th birthday when she became rightful ruler of the nation, though of course she would not become a queen until she had a king, the Princess's heart was still heavy.

She no longer mourned for the fact that she had lost both of her parents, but for the future of her land. While the exorbitant taxes her father had levied to raise funds for his desperate schemes were no longer in place, her nation's treasury was still greatly depilated. Worse still, a series of harsh winters made her hesitate to try and recoup the money from her people less their lives become utterly unbearable.

But on one cold and blustery winter day, the bravest knight in all the land who had made a name for himself fighting desert bandits on the eastern border of the Princess' Kingdom arrived. He had brought with him in turn his friend, the wisest mage in not just all of the Princess' land, but many would have contested the wisest mage in any land.

The brave Knight said that if the Princess would but listen to her friend, the land's treasury would be soon once more filled to overflowing. The Mage for his part laid out a surprisingly simple plan. He told the Princess to behold the way that the moon glistened in the night sky, and by such glistening see that clearly it must be made of silver.

With the funds the Princess could provide him with, he would be able to devise a spell such as to be able to transport people to the moon, and back again, each of them taking handfuls of silver with them, and before long the nation would indeed have more wealth then it knew what to do with."

Another interruption came forth from the occupants of Susan's coils. "Hold on, hold on. The moon isn't really made of silver, and even if it was, assuming you found a way to breath up there, if you started taking chunk after chunk of it back to earth wouldn't that play royal havoc with the tides going out of control possibly leading to the collapse of civilization as we know it? Also wouldn't introducing so much more of a previously limited quantity into the system destabilize the nation's economy through cause massive inflation?"

Susan elongated her neck so that she could look Rachel right between the eyes. "You know, I'm proud of how mature you all are, but when the mother finds herself telling one of her children that they need to be more whimsical, there's something slightly off about the relationship. Now then where was I? Ahh yes....

The Princess was wary of the Mage at first even with the Knight and all the people of the land who knew him vouching for him, because she remembered the horde of fakes who had one after another taken advantage of her father.

So, determined not to make the same mistake, the Princess decided that she would give the Mage a chance but that she would in turn personally observe him in his work, so as to be sure the little of her treasury that remained was not misspent.

She attempted to do so in secret but the Mage was quite canny and he reordered the placement of pictures in the laboratory the Princess had provided him with claiming that it allowed him to study more easily and better work his arts. Though if this was true or not the Princess could not tell, but was undeniable was that it also blocked each and every one of the peepholes that the Princess had arranged for the creation of.

So deciding that the well being of her land was a thing of importance above all else, the Princess sheepishly asked the Mage for admittance into his laboratory so that she might observe the master at work. In turn the Mage readily gave it to her, since it would have been foolish to bar the Princess from any room in her castle.

While she sat among the many bubbling potions and long drawn out theories scratched upon roll after roll of parchment, she listened to how earnestly and energetically the Mage talked about his work, she saw, for the Princess was a very good judge of character, just how deeply he cared about his native soil.

As days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months and winter turned into spring, the Mage continued to tirelessly work away from dawn till dusk, his hair and beard frequently growing long and tangled. The Princess for her part discovered to her amazement that she'd become somewhat besotted with the Mage who was a full decade her senior. She was enthralled by the idea that any man could dedicate himself so fully and do so much for her nation, for if he succeeded even the bravest knight's services would seem like a pebble balanced against a boulder.

Which was why the Princess took it upon herself to personally bring forth the food that her cooks prepared to the Mage's laboratory which he left so very infrequently that the immature Prince once joked that by this date he must have surely forgotten what the moon he was trying to reach even looked like.

Thus, the Princess was present on that fateful spring day when with a mighty cry the Mage jumped to his feet and declared that he had done it. He began to dance around his laboratory filled with excitement over finally having slain a problem that he had been locked in protracted combat with for so long. In his haste he even took the Princess's hands more or less forcing her to join in his wild uncoordinated exuberant celebration.

He soon released those royal palms however as he realized the nature of his mistake and begged the Princess' pardon which she gave, though now she would not let go of the Mage's hands. She invited him to take true love's first kiss with her then and there, since she desired greatly to have him be the man who made her a true and proper queen of a prosperous nation.

The Mage refused however saying that they should leave not leave such a thing to chance. He would not bestow that first kiss upon her and invite their love to flourish until the Princess's lands and people had already done the same." That was of course what you might call an embellishment. The night before they'd try to get to the moon Susan and Reed had engaged in what they'd decided to charmingly call a "a fuck for good luck" which had either worked wonderfully well or not at all depending upon how you measured such things.

"So the next day the Princess, the Prince, the Knight and the Mage all gathered together away from the Princess' castle so that they would have plenty of room to place the shinning silver which would soon insure none of the nations which surrounded the Princesses' lands ever thought them weak again.

The Mage drew many symbols in the ground, chanted mystic phrases in languages that made sense only to his ears, and then it happened. Four beams of light so bright as to be painful to the eyes shot down like lightning, yet no clap of thunder followed them, instead all was still and quiet.

When she regained her senses, for the spell had left her horribly disoriented in its wake, the Princess despaired, for it was only ordinary earth beneath her feet rather than shinning silver, and there were no heaps of the precious metal laying around. Angered that her hopes could have been raised so highly onto be dashed, she crossed her eyes, determined fall asleep and not reawaken until the Mage's plan had succeeded, but sleep would not come.

So she just laid there, until she felt a pair of hands try to lift her from the ground, and suddenly felt herself sliding between the fingers of that hand like sand through an hourglass. This strange feeling drove her to once more open her eyes and lay eyes upon the unfair world she dwelled in.

She saw the Knight sanding over him, a pair glistening silver wings jutting from his armor, and a worried look upon his face. 'Princess, behold yourself!' So she did just that and was amazed to see that her arms and legs had grown to many times their previous length, and laid in countless coiled loops upon the ground.

Suddenly she saw her brother the Prince, except he looked as if he had been cast in silver, and with absurd ease he ripped a large tree from the ground, roots and all. 'Look what your friend the Mage did to my sister. Since I cannot find him, you will pay for his transgressions!'

The Princess' limbs instantly found themselves in possession of an unnatural strength as they shot forward binding her brother in thick bonds that he could no more escape from then a guinea pig from a serpent's squeeze.

It was while the Prince, Princess, and Knight all marveled at this development that they suddenly heard the voice of the Mage in their heads. He told them that he had made one crucial mistake. Instead of bringing them to the silver of the moon, he had brought the silver of the moon to them.

That clearly the Knight now possessed wings of silver allowing him to fly with all the celerity of a dragon, that the Prince now possessed a body with all the strength and resilience of silver. That the Princess now possessed a soul of silver, which allowed her entire body to flow and shift like the melted form of the metal waiting for the blacksmiths hammer.

As they considered these changes the Princess asked what had happened to the Mage. In response they slowly felt themselves drawn over to a small bush and as the Princess pushed its branches aside she beheld a strange pink lump, and once again heard the Mage's voice in her ears.

He had gained the purity of silver, for while he no longer had a body, his mind which had always been his most prized possession had become even mightier than before. He begged them to return him to his laboratory so that he might prove his point and they did just that. The Knight and Prince ended up needing to carry the Princess as well for every time she tried to stand she fell over on legs that folded like parchment.

After being tossed onto her bed like a sheet the Princess fell asleep and when she awoke she promptly rolled right out of bed, which reminded her abruptly of the changes that she, her friend, brother, and true love had undergone.

She could not manage to walk, but she slowly shifted about across the floor and eventually made it to the mage's laboratory. She stared in amazement at what she found waiting for her, countless little artificial men any one of which could have fit in the palm of a grown man's hand marched this way and that, and in the center of all this hustle and bustle was a crystal ball that contained the Mage's mind.

She slowly crawled her way over and told the mage to behold how she had been unfairly blighted, for she a Princess was forced to crawl along upon the dirty ground like a worm, not to mention her dress threatened to at any moment suddenly no longer properly protect her royal dignity. In response several of the little men approached her. The Princess recoiled away in fear until they cornered her against one of the walls of the laboratory.

'Why do you run?' asked the Mage through his strange way of speaking straight to the Princess's mind. 'These clockwork creations serve as my eyes, ears, and hands, you have no more reason to fear that they would harm you than that I would.'

The Princess blushed and her chin sank even lower to the ground as she asked the Mage to tell her what he planned to do for her. The Mage told her that he would have his legion of artificial assistants craft for her a dress made from threads of finest silver woven together so that it would provide a mold for her to pour herself into, allowing to both move about as normal and take maximum advantage of her silver soul should it be called for.

The Princess was overjoyed at this news, and so she lay there meek as a mouse while the Mage's miniature army went about the task of properly measuring her. She fell asleep once more during the process and by the time she awoke her silver dress was ready. Just as the Mage had said. She allowed her body to flow backwards into it, and to her surprise found that she was able to stand up upon her own to legs once again."

This entire section of the story was of course polite embellishment, Susan had never had anywhere near that much trouble moving around like a normal human being after she got her powers, (not accidentally using them to augment her natural movements yes, but standing upright had never been especially difficult) but it made a nice touch.

"Several more of the Mage's creations held up a large mirror allowing the Princess to examine herself, though in truth she could have just as easily twisted her head upon her neck to achieve the same effect. The silver dress covered every inch of her body from neck to toe and it glistened wonderfully, but all the same the Princess was ashamed by her gift.

It was far tighter than any dress she'd ever worn, not uncomfortably so of course, but it displayed all the curves of her body with a shocking frankness. She asked the Mage if he could not make her something slightly more in keeping with current styles, but sadly the silver dress only worked its magic because it clung to her body like a second skin.

So the Princess accepted the dress since it was after all a vast improvement and without it she would once again find herself flat upon her belly or back."

"If she couldn't take it off without going all limp, how did she, you know, go to the bathroom?"

Six glares were turned in Rachel's direction, though Susan tried to make her own as soft as possible. "Let's have a quick vote, should I continue with the story or waste some time describing a complicated system of levers and pulleys used to support the Princess' body while she preformed scatological functions?"

"STORY!" Rachel was outvoted five to one so she just crossed her arms and pouted, even lengthening her neck slightly so that she could hear more clearly.

"The silver dress was only the first of the Mage's many wonderful creations. He was able to bring into being objects of a magical nature which many had thought were long lost to the world, bottles that were always filled with fresh water and would never run dry, spoons that would fill any bowl they were placed in with a hearty nourishing broth, countless tiny crystal balls that allowed people all over the Princess's land to communicate with each other far more quickly than even the most well trained pigeon could fly...

These great inventions were one and all delivered to the people of the land by the Knight who used his silver wings to go from village to village faster than any horseman could ride. And so, even if it had not happened exactly how he planned it, the mage's spell did indeed lead to the Princess's land flourishing, as she was guiltlessly able to increase taxes to refill the royal treasury since her people were kept well sustained by the Mage's magical artifacts.

Unsurprisingly, as the Princess' land became quite prosperous and full of magical artifacts, many princes from foreign lands travelled to try and win her hand in marriage so that they too might possess such items.

Nor of course did it escape their notice that with future of her land had been ensured, much of her dourness left the Princess who spent many a festival whirling about the dance floor in her silver dress, sparkling like a star come to earth. One and all of these princes however she thanked for their time and gave tiny recompense to them for their journey, hoping that there would continue be peace between their lands for centuries to come, but refusing to marry herself to them.

These princes in turn left gracefully, allowing the Princess to return to the Mage's laboratory where she spent many a night gazing longingly at the crystal ball which held all that remained of the man she had thought was destined to be her one true love.

But no sooner was one problem dealt with than another rose its ugly head, for there were a great many sentiments among the people of her kingdom who felt the Princess should marry the bravest Knight in the Kingdom, after all countless had been those who had seen the Knight arrive at their villages, towns, or cities delivering the Mage's creations.

The Princess herself was conflicted, for Knight was in fact strong of arm, kind of heart, and compared to her brother certainly quite wise. Yet, night after night, she'd shift in her bed and think of the glowing opaque orb that held what remained of the brilliant Mage who sacrificed so very much for the good of so many.

One day the Princess and the Knight left her castle in order to attend some formal function celebrating how very nice things were in the kingdom these days, with the Knight acting as the Princess's escort since she required one and could think of none more suited for the task.

While they were away a drake with obsidian colored scales, flapped its way to the top of the Princess's castle, and a single figure jumped down. He was dressed from head to toe in dark armor, but he was far more dangerous than any base knave. He was an evil Wizard who had studied at the same school of spell crafting as the Mage, in the fact that the two had known each quite well.

During their time they had made many of the other students, and even some of the teachers look like fools who claimed sleight of hand tricks with cards and rabbits were true magic instead of the ability to summon forth flame with but a word and gesture. But one day the Mage had come upon the Wizard working upon a most unusual spell that involved consorting with deamons and devils.

The Mage warned the Wizard of the danger inherent in such actions, that should there be the slightest miscalculation of the spell either in how it was written or how it was cast the Wizard would pay for it, and in fact noticed one such error. The Wizard however would not hear of it, and ignored the Mage's words, and went ahead with casting the spell that night beneath the full moon.

No one knew exactly what happened as a result of the spell, but the Wizard refused to show his face afterwards, claiming himself horribly disfigured and shortly afterwards he was cast out from the school. But he had not let that stand in his way and had studied all manner of magics and used his power most greedily to force those around him into obedience.

His armor was the Wizard's greatest creation, it served as a place to store vast amounts of magical power, allowing him to perform all manner of remarkable feats. He had heard of his rival's transformation and wanted to posses such power as well, not to mention prove himself finally the greater of the two.

He entered into the Mage's laboratory and since the mage did not recognize him, he tricked the Mage with talk of how working together they could create a mechanical creation the size of a normal human being, and by making use of it the Mage would be able to win the Princess's hand.

Though the Mage literally had no heart, he still possessed feelings and desires, and thus allowed himself to be moved into a special container for transport by the Wizard. A container that the Wizard had designed just so as to prevent the Mage from being able to make use his vast magical powers. Before the Wizard was able to escape however he ran into the Prince, who challenged him to battle.

Sadly even the silver skinned Prince was no match for Wizard and his black armor, though before he fled the Prince in a moment of great heroism attached a minuscule magical amulet to the foot of the Wizard's drake. Thus, when the Princess and the Knight returned shortly they were able to track the Wizard back to his tower, travelling in an artificial dragon that Mage had crafted.

As they approached the sable tower however a flock of deamons descended upon them. The Dragon luckily had a multitude of defences: blasts ice from hidden nozzles froze the deamons to statues and beams of energy returned the winged monsters to whatever dark realm they had been spawned in.

But in the end the deamons managed to shred the dragon's wings causing it to crash into the Wizard's tower about halfway up. The Princess, Prince and Knight quickly abandoned the dragon, and though many deamons tried to follow them, in the confined space they were quickly defeated.

The Knight grabbed two of the flaming pitchforks that the defeat deamons had used, and said that he would finish off those that remained. The Prince for his part planned to scale the outside of the Wizard's tower, his silver limbs crushing onyx stones into hand and foot holds.

The Princess of course began to quickly cascade up the towering staircase to the Wizard's private domain. Each of the three faced a challenge of course. The Knight did battle with a full score of the remaining deamons, and only after all of them had been sent plummeting groundward was he free to proceed.

The Prince discovered to his horror that the Wizard had designed his tower so that certain parts of it might be detached and with but the pull of a lever, a section of the castle fell away while the Prince still gripped it. But the Prince managed to adjust his grip and leap from the falling piece of rubble and once again grab hold of the tower, continuing his climb.

And as for the Princess, she found herself face to face with a gigantic 'man' made of the mud. He hurled huge spheres of the stuff at her that would have doubtlessly quickly left an entire squad of ordinary soldiers helplessly mired, but the Princess danced as she never had before in her life, first left, then right, back and up, avoiding the golem's attacks while drawing ever closer.

Then she took a great breath and dived into the midst of the monster. At once the battle surged back and forth between the mud monster, and the Princess with the silver soul, between a creature that was only following its orders, and a woman who was fighting for the man she loved.

Its conclusion was inevitable, the mud monster's body broke apart and pieces of it were hurled in every conceivable direction leaving the Princess free to continue climbing the Wizard's tower.

The Prince reached the top of the tower, and tore a large enough hole in a wall that he could climb through it with the Knight following behind him, while the Princess slipped in through a simple wooden door. The Wizard faced them all smiled, as he gestured at another lever, and told them that he only needed to pull it to send the orb which held the Mage's mind plummeting to the bottom of his tower, where it would of course shatter.

The Prince and Princess were momentarily held motionless by this threat but then the Knight told them how from his experiences, if they allowed themselves to surrender at his threat, then they would be equally helpless before the Wizard, and so they had to struggle while they still could. And so they attacked.

But the Wizard, summoned forth a mighty gust of wind that hurled the Prince and Princess backwards against the walls of his tower. The Knight who had avoided the storm tried to remove the container holding the Mage's mind from the trap door it was positioned above, but without success as the Wizard quickly struck him down with a blast of mystical energy.

The Prince once again went forth to battle with the Wizard, but this time he knew about the all but impenetrable shield which protected the Wizard, and so he waited for his armored foe to try and strike him before he met force with force. The resulting shockwave was so great that the Prince was knocked out, but one gauntlet of the Wizard's armor was destroyed, that the sight that the Princess beheld as she regained her wits.

Not all of her wits of course, because had the Princess been thinking clearly she would have wrapped herself around the Wizard's mouth to gag him and prevent him from casting any more spells or even drawing breath until he collapsed..."

"Mom you're starting to drift into Rachel territory here, you can spare us the tactics lecture." Susan didn't so much as miss a beat.

"As I was saying Samantha, in a blind rage the Princess attacked the Wizard who responded by casting another spell which electrified his armor and shocking the Princess until she lay helpless before him upon the floor. The Wizard cackled, for even if he had lost an arm of his armor, he now finally would be able to have the mage's power all for his own.

Or so he thought at least. At the sight of what his captor had done to the Princess, the Mage was driven beyond simple things like hatred or fury, into a state that does not have a proper word for, becoming something like the purest distillation of wrath imaginable. The wards that the Wizard had erected to contain his power shattered in the blink of an eye.

The Wizard realizing that he could not contain the Mage's power went for the lever that would seal the Mage's fate and pulled it. As the trapdoor opened the Mage cast a spell that he'd been saving for a truly desperate situation, the one spell that he believed might reverse his fate, a spell designed to swap the spirits that resided within two bodies.

And so the spirit of the Evil Wizard was sealed inside the Mage's mind leaving him to scream and curse all the way down to the bottom of his tower, where upon he suffered the same fate he had planned for his rival.

And as for the Mage and his companions? Well the Princess was mightily confused when she awoke to find the same body which had left them in such a deplorable state now tending to their wounds. With the voice of the evil Wizard, the kind Mage explained to his friends what happened, to them, and he offered to reveal the story of his entire life to prove his true identity. However the Princess needed only look into his eyes, to realize the truth of his words." That was another polite fabrication but the truth was definitely not suitable for her children's ears.

"They departed from the Wizard's black tower, making use of its previous owner's own tamed drake as the tower itself now lacking the magical power its master had infused into it sank into the depths of the earth itself. Needless to say there was much rejoicing among the nobles of the land at the four's return, but there was also much trepidation.

Both of them afraid, the Princess feared that should she remove her silver dress, she'd once again find her body unable to support itself, while the Mage worried that the face which dwelled beneath his armor might drive his love from his side. Both of them saw the fright that dwelled within the other's eyes, and so very slowly the Princess began to remove, the black helmet as the Mage began to remove the silver dress he might as well have crafted with his own hands.

The Princess felt the helmet come loose, but kept her eyes firmly closed, waiting for the feeling of powerlessness that would surly come when he dress was removed. She did not care in the slightest what her new husband's face looked like, just so long as she was actually able to gaze upon it, rather than finding looking helplessly at his feet while she lay upon the floor.

But while she felt the cold air lap at her body that was all, and when she finally faced what she feared, the Princess discovered that even without her silver dress she was still standing perfectly upright. Then she gazed with equal wonder at her husband's face. For the disfigurement that the Wizard could not bear to have any gaze upon was in truth naught but a tiny pink scar no larger than her pinkie finger

'You could stand on your own.'

'And you always were handsome.' And with those sweet words ringing in their ears the two finally shared true loves first kiss.

The Princess full well planned to marry the Mage, whatever his body he occupied. And thus the Princess and the Mage were married in a grand ceremony before all the nobles of the land."

More embellishment, compared to the up and downs that had come from her getting pregnant before getting married, the fact that half of her children's genetic structure came from a man who would have doubtlessly been one of the world's worst supervillains given half a chance had gone thoroughly uncommented upon to her surprise in retrospect.

"Now then off to bed my sweet Princes and Princesses, we've got another big day tomorrow." Susan abruptly released her grip and to her satisfaction all six of her children bounced rather than splattered as they hit, the ground heading for their beds.

Susan took a moment to return her body to its normal human appearance and stood up brushing a strand of blond hair out of her eyes.

"And of course just like all good stories that one doesn't end but still continues to this day..."

"Tell me another one."

Susan rotated her neck around round to face her uninvited green guest and shot him her best smirk. "Make me."

The Impossible Man glowered down at her as he floated above her. "If you don't I'll turn into a really scary monster and gobble you up!"

Susan's smirk only grew wider. "If you do that then you'll never hear another story. You see, while you might be able to do whatever you want, you could probably even find some way of capturing me and taking me so far away from here that even Reed would never find me, that still doesn't ensure that I'll do what you want, quite the opposite in fact.

You see your own power works against you, there's a human expression that sums it up pretty well I think, 'It's lonely at the top of Olympus', meaning that no one wants to play with someone who always wins.

It's why Vegas pays my husband a thousand dollars a year not to set foot in it unless it's for superheroic purposes. It's why you could bounce all around this town and find not one other person who will pay attention to you regardless of what you do. So unless you agree to my terms I'm not going to open my mouth in your presence again."

The Impossible Man floated a little closer. "What terms?"

Susan held up a finger. "First off I'll tell you one more story, one." She held up another finger. "After that you head straight back to wherever you came from."

She raised a third finger. "If you obey the second rule then once per year, and that's years by our measure of recollection, one trip of the earth around the Sun, and I'll tell you another story as soon as I can find time since I'm not going to be spinning yarns while evil villains are holding the world or this city hostage."

She raised her fourth finger. "Fail to abide by rules, one through three, at any point and I won't even know you're there no matter what you do. Understand?"

The Impossible Man nodded along with her every word. "Okay, okay, but like you said, you have to tell me another one right now!"

Her smirk now filled Susan's lips to the very brim. "All right then, here's the story of the silver souled Queen, and the dreadful djinn...."

----

"And thus concludes our modern day retelling of Shahrazad..." Susan said proudly to her husband as they lay "in bed" together, her body whose lower legs were still melded together quivered back and forth before him, like a dancing snake. "The moral now the same as it always was, never underestimate the power of a woman who knows how to tell a good story."

Reed smiled up at Susan as he hands stroked her bare skin. "So tell me, once you have your audience enthralled, what do you do next?"

Susan began to very slowly wrap her body around Reed's. "Then I move in for the main event...."


	3. Chapter 3

Second Stretches Chapter Three: Nuptuals in which Susan Richards is maid of honor.

A black head of hair slowly rose up out of the New York Harbor. The head of hair was slowly followed by a well-sculpted (one might go so far as to say regal) face with piercing blue eyes. As a full (mostly) human body slowly emerged from the waters anyone could see that the body was indisputably male (given that he had a completely bare chest which was incredibly well-muscled) followed by the green, scale-like pair of swim trunks that were the only article of clothing which adorned his body.

No other adornments were needed for he was Namor, Prince of Atlantis and ruler of the seas. Leaving aside his all but impossibly-toned physique, the much more obvious sign of how he was something other than normal was the small pair of wings that were sprouting from his ankles. How exactly those things allowed him to soar through the air with complete and utter ease was a question still up to debate, but he didn't bother trying to answer such questions.

Instead, he focused on what lay ahead of him as he flew toward one of New York City's most obvious landmarks, the Baxter Building home to the Fantastic Five. As he approached the building however the entire side of it facing him was instantly surrounded by a glowing blue barrier of pure energy, and a mechanical voice spoke out to him from some unseen origin.

"Approaching subject identified as Namor... classification, non-applicable. Your majesty, if you wish to speak with Doctor Richards then he is being summoned to the roof after having been notified of your presence. Be aware that until your intentions have been determined you will not be allowed to enter the rest of the Baxter Building..." Namor gave one of his most surreptitious sneers in response to this particular message. But, not wanting to do battle with the technological creations of a man who had managed prove himself capable of creating weapons the likes of which even he had reason to fear, Namor ascended upwards.

When he finally landed on the roof of the Baxter Building, Reed Richards was there, dressed fully in his protective armor, holding a weapon that looked like something both strangely surreal and deadly. He tapped the side of it while pointing it at Namor's chest.

"I designed this one with you in mind, Namor. It shoots highly pressurized jets of water, which, as it leaves the barrel, has a several thousand volt current running through it. Trust me, you'd find the sensation anything but 'refreshing'. In fact, by comparison it would make getting hit with a tazer would feel like nothing but a tickle. So now that I've made clear how the only thing I need is a modified squirt gun to fill your mind with unbelievable amounts of pain, I'm open to the idea that you came here intending to have a reasonable conversation. So what brings you here, Namor?"

Being above such plebeian concerns, the prince of the seas did not begrudge Doctor Richards his paranoia and the less than gracious welcome. Namor himself was more than man enough to admit had someone made machinations concerning his own pregnant love he would have loathed to ever forgive them.

Of course, Namor hadn't known of said pregnancy at the time, which, of course, was also the only reason he had been able to bring himself to raise his arms in violence against the woman who the both men mutually adored.

"I do, in fact, come here peacefully, Doctor Richards, and with glad tidings. Since despite my regrettable behavior prior, you were willing to accept my presence at your wedding, I thought it would be only appropriate to return the favor."

For one of the few times in his life, Reed Richard seemed to be completely and utterly surprised. With the mask attached to his armor hiding his eyes and face, it was hard to see. However, when he repeated the statement he had just heard by turning it into a question, it was fairly obvious.

"You're inviting us to your wedding?" Namor nodded and, before anything more could be said, another member of the Fantastic Five joined them on the roof. She was one of the most beautiful women it had even been Prince Namor's honor and pleasure to lay eyes upon, even if, sadly, the only times he had ever laid hands upon her, it had been in battle.

She lacked the traditional bluish tinted skin of Atlantean woman but this was an easily forgotten thing. For not only was her peach colored complexion quite remarkable in its exotic way, but the head-to-toe blue outfit she wore prevented him from seeing vast amounts of the skin. This served to remind him that she was not one of his subjects.

Her long blond hair rolled down in glorious curls which, against the previously-noted color of her costume, almost seemed to suggest that the world had turned upside down and now waves of flowing sand were breaking upon solid water. Her eyes were a deep, enthralling blue, possessing the same depth and beauty as the oceans of which he ruled.

Her hands were, at the same time, both dainty and elegant as befitted a proper noble lady, but also (he knew from rather embarrassing experience) possessed strength she would not hesitate to use to ensnare or throttle foes. Her breasts were well-formed and, as always, spectacular, though now they seemed to be even more forcefully-thrusting themselves forward like a pair of monarchs standing side-by-side as they surveyed their shared kingdom.

Her belly, though usually flat, once again puffed outwards. But it was not with the sagging softness of indolence or laxity, not in the least! It did so with the hard firmness of a woman who was proudly doing right by her husband with his heirs to be. Thus, in her maternal state, did the body of Susan Richards cut an even more imposing (and impressive) figure than usual.

"I heard that Namor was up here. What do you want? Because if it's to try to carry me off to be your bride again then need I simply remind you that I've been happily married for over half a decade now, have half a dozen lovely children who I couldn't bear to be apart from, and, as a cherry on top if you didn't notice, I'm pregnant again." At the last she pointed towards the womb which had already drawn her guest's attention. Namor at once went down on one knee and inclined his head towards the ground in a gesture of supplication.

"No, Susan, I do not come here to ask for your hand, but simply to offer you a possibility of being a maid of honor at my upcoming marriage to Lady Dorma. She is a member of my own realm who I am proud to say has won my heart, for her beauty rivals, if not somehow manages to surpass your own, even if she will be hard pressed to match your fertility.

"I would say more, but there exist boundless tasks to complete in preparation for the blessed event. So, I must return to my kingdom. You may refuse my offer without fear that I will be offended in the slightest. But, if you do come, I will offer you all the pleasures that Atlantis can provide. Now I must be off with all possible haste." And sure enough, without further ado, Namor took off flying back towards the watery depths from which he had emerged.

----

The entire Fantastic Five, plus Alicia, were gathered around a table for the impromptu meeting that Reed had called after Namor's departure to explain the unusual offer they had been presented with. Ben was the first one to raise his voice once Reed opened the floor to discussion.

"You realize, of course, that this could be a trap. I mean name one time that ankle wings has ever brought us anything but trouble." Across the table Johnny glowered at him, transforming his skin to organic metal for a moment, then letting it slide back to flesh.

"How about that upmpty bazillion dollars he provided us with when the Fantastic Four was running low on cash?" A pair of half-pained expressions were exchanged between Susan and Reed, who were the only members of the team who had known exactly what had taken place during that particular event. Then Reed decided to intercede before the two's argument could gather any more steam.

"I know that Namor tends to be temperamental at times, but I've never known him to out and out lie." Temperamental was hardly the word that Susan would have used. After the Second World War, Namor had suffered from a bout of amnesia that he had emerged from the worse for wear, just to start with. Apparently, due to his connection to the seas, as one became a less healthy place to be, the other became less and less pleasant to be around.

Reed had once half jokingly said that the crash of the Exxon Valdez had made Namor bipolar, an explanation which could make dangerous amounts of sense at the time. Every so often Namor tended to be involved in some almost international incident, like threatening to invade whatever country had ended up accidentally having a nuclear sub malfunction and nearly irradiate a small portion of the ocean. But, at the same time, every so often he'd also show up to pitch in to help deal with whatever global crisis was threatening the world, since if the Skrulls or Kree conquered the surface world then they'd been setting their sights on Atlantis next.

Ben looked at Reed as if he had just been blindsided by a tank while waiting at a red light.

"Umm, why are you so interested in singing fish breath's praises, Reed? I'd figure that you of all people would have the most reasons to hate him." Reed coughed slightly and looked away.

"Well, it's just that you need to remember that even at the best of times Namor has never actually opened up anything remotely resembling an embassy with humanity. So for whatever reason, this particular offer represents a chance for us to literally go where no man has gone before... if I could have a chance to examine their technology or whatever they have that passes for a library..." Susan decided it was probably a good thing that Reed was still dressed in his armor, because otherwise Susan was 100% certain that everyone else in the room would be able to see the fact that he had started salivating. But, it turned out that it wasn't necessary since Ben (who had obviously come to the same conclusion she had) had proceeded to cover his face with both hands and plant his chin firmly on the table.

"You've got to be kidding us. You mean that we're gonna walk into whatever he's got waiting for us, just on the off chance that you will get to peek at some books?" Reed gave a rather spluttering cough that sounded nothing at all like his normal completely and utterly confident tone of voice.

"I'm just saying that, well... there are significant dividends that could result from accepting his offer, even leaving aside simple good will. It's a wedding invitation rather than a mission, so it's not as if the entire team has to go." Susan's right arm (the one that was closer to Reed) grew longer and wrapped itself quite firmly around his body.

"Well, I guess it's pretty clear that you're going to need someone to tag along and look after you or else you'll study your brains out. Quite personally, I really like those brains just fine right where they are..." Over at the other side of the table, Johnny seemed rather pleased with this particular turn of events.

"There's no way that my sister is going to go for a journey to some underwater city and I don't get to come along. Crys, you up for it?" Crystal sighed mightily for a moment, but then smiled openly and, to all appearances, quite proudly.

"Well, I've been to a lot of different places as a result of being with the Fantastic Five, but I don't think I've ever gone to a city under the sea before. After spending so much time growing up in a really high place, it should be interesting and fun to go some place really low instead!" Ben's wings flapped as he very slowly began to pull his hands away from his face.

"Oh boy, this is gonna be one of those field trips which is just bound to go wrong. Well guess it's my job as always to make sure that it all comes out okay in the end. Well then there's only one question left, though I guess this means there are only two questions left. Alicia, are you going to come with us or stay here to look after the kids?"

"Hey! Who says she can't look after the kids and come with you?" Susan's face instantly became extremely downcast as she stretched out her left arm towards a nearby ventilation shaft. She poked around it for a few moment before she proceeded to yank out a struggling Samantha Richards. She looked around at the table for a few moments then smiled awkwardly.

"So, how is everybody doing?" Susan unceremoniously half dumped, half threw her daughter onto the table. The Richards family was understandably unconcerned about casual use of corporal punishment since, after all, the children they were raising were more or less immune to such minor incidents as being hurled across the room. Sure enough Samantha was only slightly bent out of shape by her landing.

"You see, Mom and Dad, I was just... um..."

"Hanging around in the ventilation shaft?" Samantha's head bobbed up and down rather pitifully.

"Yeah Mom, that just about perfectly sums up what I was doing. So, I'll just be going now. I think I see a crack in the floor that's plenty large enough for me to squeeze through in fact..." She began to scoot her way towards the edge of the table, but once again Susan proceeded to grab her daughter by the scruff of her elastic neck.

"Oh, you're not going anywhere, young lady. By the way, if there are any other sets of ears listening I'd suggest you show yourselves like mature adults if you want to be treated like them. That or your father can just use his psychic radar to find you...." A moment later Franklin came skulking out of the exact same ventilation shaft that Samantha had been in been in, looking at the floor the entire time.

"I'm sorry Mom and Dad...." A moment later a blue substance began to slink down out of the ceiling and, as it dripped onto the table, took the form of Benjamin Richards.

"If you guys had wanted to keep us out you should patch the roof." A moment later, Susan could feel something wriggling against her legs as Jane emerged from beneath the table leg that she'd apparently been wrapped around.

"Or the crack in the table." Looking to see if any more of her children would reveal herself she looked around the room and saw a single ear stretched out so that it would fall just inside the room. She let out a loud "ahem" and the ear vanished only to reappear a few moments later as all of Valeria Richards entered the room walked in.

"Some of us don't even need to take advantage of the occasional millimeter wide crack in the masonry." Then it was that the most ambitious of her children made their appearance. What she had originally assumed to be some kind of harmless looking blue coaster suddenly proved to have eyes as it expanded outward transforming into Rachel Richards.

"Chance favors the prepared mind, and knowledge is power. So it only makes sense that we'd like to know what's going on." Susan released her grip on Samantha but redirected the arm towards Rachel instead.

"Okay young lady, how exactly did you get in here?" Rachel shrugged slightly a rather bemused smile on her face.

"You guys always have your conversations in the same place. So when I heard you were having one I made my over here pronto and then just sat there nice and quiet. Susan looked around the room for a few moments not quite sure what to do about the sudden over abundance of her offspring filling the room.

"Okay seeing as it'd be a waste of effort to kick you kids out at this point I guess we'll just have to make room for you. But if you're going to come in here then you're going to have to put up with sitting at the kiddie table since there aren't exactly an extra half dozen chairs to go around, so everybody on mommy...." Susan leaned back and stretched out her body creating a wide flat area for the six children to climb up onto. They of course did just that quite gratefully, glad to have a seat from which they only needed to extend their necks a few inches in order to properties the other occupant of the table.

Once the thoroughly expected shoving match that was bound to result from placing six children whose bodies could more or less whatever take up whatever amount of space they chose into a relatively confined area had been settled Benjamin spoke up once again.

"What I don't get is, how exactly any of us would be able to go, or at least stay there comfortably. I mean it's underwater after all!" Though no words were spoken the brief flash of approval Susan detected in Ben's eyes made it quite clear that he'd been planning to ask the same question himself sooner or later. Johnny at once turned to the problem solving tool of choice for any issue that he couldn't solve with brute force, his wife.

"Well Crys can control the elements, she could probably use her powers to make sure we don't drown while we're down there..." Crystal herself blushed slightly as she looked around at all the occupants of the room.

"I know I could do it for myself okay given some of the times I went swimming with my cousin Triton when I was younger, but I'm not sure if I could handle so many people, especially for an extended period of time." Johnny gave her a quick reassuring pat on the back and placed one of his gloved hands on top of her hers.

"I'm sure you'd do great, besides, Reed's armor is air tight now so he wouldn't need it, and I know my sister has been training her kids in how to compact large amounts of oxygen within their lungs so they don't need to breath very often. This means you'd only need to worry about me, you, Ben and Alicia if she comes." Reed coughed loudly and promptly rendered that particular issue moot.

"I've been working on something that might prove rather useful in my lab recently. It's intended purpose is for exploring deep space. Seeing as it is an object you can wear on your wrists which projects an artificial atmosphere and forty eight hour supply of oxygen if we each take two of them that should make sure we neither drown nor suffer any of the other maladies which can accompany considerable amounts of time spent underwater."

"Like the bends!" Rachel immediately piped up, unable to resist a chance to share her already nearly encyclopedic knowledge with everyone in the room. In the wake of her comments Ben sighed heavily.

"Which all brings us right back to where we started. We can do it, but are we sure we want to." Alicia reached out and after fumbling for a moment managed to run a hand along one of his outstretched wings.

"I think we do, Ben. Look on the bright side if there really is a completely different culture down there then maybe I'll get a chance to feel out some of their artwork." That, of course, sealed things rather firmly. It was clear that if Alicia was intent on going then Ben would cease to raise any noticeable sort of argument. Not that it meant he'd stayed silent.

"Okay, but if this turns out to be a trap..." Susan shifted herself about slightly, sending ripples through her body, playfully bouncing her children up and down while stretching the arm she didn't have attached to her husband across the table to give him a playful pat on the shoulder.

"Look on the bright side Ben. There was a time when we'd walk into a trap without realizing we might be about to get in trouble ahead of time!"

----

"Oh wow, look at that!" Franklin pointed excitedly out the porthole in the recently named "Fantastisub" that they were taking down to Atlantis. Susan turned to look in the general direction of the porthole to make sure that none of them did anything foolish.

"Dad, can we go outside?" Like if Jane decided that she should create an 'ensie weensey" crack in their vehicle large enough for her to slip outside through, give or take the few hundred gallons of water it would take equalize the pressure inside and outside.

Unsurprisingly, a few moments after she'd spoken, Jane had proceeded to tap her finger on the porthole, and Susan wrapped an arm around her and yanked her back before she decided to try anything more forceful.

"No you can't. We're all going to stay inside." Jane wiggled about in her mother's grip more as a means of general protest at this treatment than any real hope of escaping.

"But why, Mom?" Actually Jane proceeded to stretch out that last word into at least a five second and several syllable long protest. Rachel cheerfully tapped the complicated looking device that she was wearing on her right wrist.

"Yeah, Mom, I mean we've already got our antidrowning devices on. Given how much noise this thing is making it's unlikely that anything too dangerous will take a look at us. Heck, given our powers the only thing that might possibly hurt us would be getting eaten by a whale, and what are the odds of that?" Given the way that the closer you got to Atlantis the more 'exotic' and 'eccentric' the sea life got, Susan felt the odds might turn out to be surprisingly good. A moment later it turned out that her children weren't the only one feeling a bit curious.

"Well if you really want to, I don't see why you couldn't. Make sure to keep one knotted limb around the sub at all times!" Susan was mature enough not to send an irritated glare in her husband's direction. Though for the most part Reed Richards was firmly grounded, as Susan had previously noted during the discussion around going to Atlantis, there were times when he let his interest in learning things get the best of him.

Knowing that it would only be a few moments before Susan's ears were buffeted with requests to make good on their father's comments, she decided to approach that particular problem head on.

"Okay fine, let's head to the decompression chamber." Cheers went up from all of her children as the group worked their way through the relatively crowded sub. Towards the one main exit. Of course the actual decompressing part of the chamber wasn't necessary in his case thanks to the previously noted bracelets they were all wearing, but it did serve one more important function, it could be filled with water and then easily pumped dry again without letting water get inside the rest of the sub.

Once her brood was clustered about inside the room Susan pulled he hatch closed behind them, and began to run her hands along it using her powers as a convenient way to make sure that indeed it was airtight.

Just like 99.9 percent of the things he designed, it worked exactly as Reed said it would. Doubtlessly having seen a small panel light up to let Reed know that his children were ready for their swim, a section of the sub slid back and water began to fill the chamber.

Susan took a deep breath, and for a moment she was forced to fight down a perfectly reasonable fear of drowning. That fear took on a surreal edge when the water began to splash about, and kept expecting to feel both wet and cold, yet remained perfectly dry and warm.

Slightly reassured by this turn of events, Susan began to move towards the exit, but the rushing force of water was too strong. So she just stood there able to see that the water was now up to her hips (and over her children's heads) but still untouched by the stuff. In fact Susan could see that her children were anxious to take advantage of their shorter stature, to leave, even if their mother couldn't. A few surreptitious looks were all that she needed to keep order, however.

Once the chamber was completely flooded, (and yet another advance of their wrist bracelets asserted itself, it turned out that she could see just fine while underwater even without using her powers) Susan drifted outwards grabbing hold of the sub straight away. Her six children followed their mother outside, and to Susan's pride they one and all did the exact same thing.

Anchored in place they were able to look around and see the full splendor of the underwater world around them. Even an experienced superheroine like Ultra Woman was momentarily left speechless by the countless different kinds of aquatic life they were surrounded by with. Of course she recovered her senses just in time to wrap her right arm firmly around Franklin who had ended up letting go of the sub due to his overwhelming surprise.

Susan let loose with a reasonably loud cough, and Franklin at once realized that he was in danger of being left adrift, a few moments later not only were both of his legs wrapped around the sub, but he had a pair of knots tied in them just to be on the safe side. He looked up at his mother apprehensively, but Susan gave him a reassuring nod before she returned to examining the others and making sure that they were all keeping their own grip's tight and firm.

Of course as it turned out for all its beauty, there were unpleasant things in the depths of the ocean, and not all of them were considerate enough to look ugly.

"Hello again Susan. I see you are enjoying the grandeur of my realm." Ultra Woman was in no mood to mince words with Namor who was lazily drifting by through the water, seeming able to effortlessly keep pace with the Fantastisub.

"Good to see you as well, Namor. We decided to take you up on your offer." Namor nodded quite calmly as he surveyed the other bodies dressed from head to toe in blue riding on the outside of the sub.

"And it is a pleasure to see your children up close and personal for what I do believe is the first time." Susan nodded slowly, taking a moment to cross her arms rather defiantly.

"They're psychic, by the way." She wasn't sure why. Given that Reed had ended up possessing black hair instead of brown before Susan got pregnant, at the moment she was left keenly aware of the fact that her children probably wouldn't have looked all that different (except possibly having ankles wings as well) if Namor had been their father instead of Reed Richards. This realization could have lead to an extremely unpleasant and even more extremely protracted silence had not Samantha stepped into to fill the verbal void.

"So Mr. King of the Seas, is it true that mom almost beat the snot out of you even when she was pregnant?" Unsurprisingly Namor still hadn't picked up the finer art of sarcasm.

"While I hardly take pride in the memory, I cannot deny that it was a glorious battle between two extremely worthy foes..." There was no stopping him now as with considerable relish Namor went about the process of describing the fight between himself and Susan in the kind of overly dramatic descriptions that was his stock and trade, and doubtless to leave her children hanging from his every word.

And so the Fantastic Five ended up spending two full days quite peacefully in Atlantis, availing themselves to whatever their individual interests in the underwater kingdom. In the process Susan discovered that the only way to make morning sickness more irritating to experience it underwater.

Suffice to say learning how the 'facilities' worked underwater (the three sea shell set up was damnably unintuitive) had been tricky enough, but they also quite clearly hadn't apparently been designed with making it easy to dispose of a preciously digested meal. She'd ended up needing to use her powers to corral the stuff with a stretchy hand, and in the process been free to realize just how much more disgusting free floating vomit was.

----

However after a full forty eight hours of such treatment Reed and Susan had taken all they were going to take without further explanation of exactly what was going on. Mainly because despite Namor seeming readiness to show them just about anything they wanted to see from Altantis' great Libraries to a tour of its defenses, he had come up with one excuse after another whenever they had tried to press him into introducing (or even letting them lay eyes upon) Lady Dorma.

So shortly after returning to the Fantastisub to swap out their "wrist breathers" the pair took it upon themselves to corner the monarch during one of his early morning swims around the city. Susan wrapped both of her arms around Namor and pulled him in close a prominent scowl upon her face all the while.

"All right Namor, what exactly is going on here? I don't need telepathic powers to know that there's more to this then you just wanting to show off and make amends. So why don't you tell us exactly what's going on before I have my husband read your mind and find out for us? Are you planning on taking my children hostage and not releasing them unless I marry you or some other sick twisted scheme?" Namor's face managed to remain composed as it shifted between looking at Susan to looking at Reed and then back again, before it suddenly broke and he turned his gaze towards the ground like a shamed schoolboy.

"You're right, I should... I must tell you what is going on. This was not some kind of ploy to gain Susan's love, I fully accepted that it would never be mine years ago during her first pregnancy. It is something far more insidious. Even as we speak a barbarian overlord by the name of Atuma who desires to rule Atlantis himself has been marshalling his forces which are made up among all the most horrific monstrosities to ever lay eyes upon the depths of the ocean.

Their numbers are great, and that, that is why you have not seen Lady Dorma. The two of us were idly examining the full reaches of my domain when we attacked by a contingent of his forces. I fought nobly, of course, and left many of his minions worse for wear, but in the end I and my lovely bride had to be separated. Atuma has given me a month to surrender all of Atlantis to him, or else he would come and take it. Which is why I invited you here..." In between every word he spoke Namor's teeth clenched shut like a castle's gates in between every word he spoke. Veins were starting to pop into appearance all over his face leaving it look like a patchwork of countless blue trenches.

"Knowing the strength of the force he leads, I realized that my own hope of defeating him, retaining my throne, and getting back my bride would be to get help..." Reed cut right through what Namor would doubtlessly turn into a quite detailed explanation given half a chance.

"So to get to the heart of the matter, you decided that, rather than just out and out ask for our help you'd have to trick us into doing it? With said trick leading to my children occupying a city that will soon be under siege?" Namor looked away and nodded, and the water around him seemed to shimmer, leaving Susan to wonder how crying worked underwater.

"Yes. But you have to understand, if Atuma manages to gain control of Atlantis he would be free to turn his attention towards conquering the surface world as well. Believe me when I say that given half a chance, what he would release upon your people would make my worst actions seem like a lover's kiss." Susan's eye's drifted towards her husband, perfectly aware that the old saying about the devil you knew and the one you didn't. A metal covered foot tapped against the floor, and then he spoke.

"Well if nothing else it's about time that you realized the surface and underwater world are inseparably connected. Though I'm sorry that it took such a horrific catastrophe to finally wake you up to the fact. Susan, go let the others know about this. Namor, I suggest you show me to your armory at once, and how long do we have till Atuma arrives?"

"About twenty four hours, he'll be launching his attack at noon tomorrow." Ultra Woman wondered why an underwater evil villain would be kind enough to attack at noon when it was probably a lot harder to track the progress of the sun down here. Come to think of it she hadn't seen any clocks either.... But then she put such concerns aside, if there was one thing that she had noticed over the last few years was whatever powers ran the universe, they had a theatrical streak.

"And the children?" Reed's gaze shifted between the two other occupants of the room before finally settling on his wife.

"Have Ben take them and Alica back to the Baxter Building, and then get back here as soon as possible. They won't like it but..." Susan just nodded not at all looking forward to the conversation she'd soon have to deal with. She expected however dastardly Atuma might supposedly be, she was soon going to be in the most vicious battle she'd have to fight for a week.

----

Sure enough the next twenty four hours proved to be quite a series of small ordeals even before the first shot was fired. Susan had to put up with a many voiced chorus of "Mom, do we have to?" Though she found Jane's "Hey Rachel, what day is 'take your daughter to work day' anyway? We never get to see anything exciting happening up close!" rather cute.

They eventually acquiesced to the inherent danger of the situation and departed. That left Susan free to attend the council of war that Namor had set up. A council that was made all the more difficult because Reed was busy doing what little he could while working on improving the weapons Namor's soldiers would use to defend Atlantis.

It was also decided that when the attack came, Ben would be commanding the Fantastisub since Reed had taken care of making sure to design it with considerable offensive and defensive capabilities in mind. Johnny and Crystal would be hanging around near the front gates of Atlantis along with Namor.

Finally, Reed and Susan would be functioning as a cavalry force of sorts operating further out away from Atlantis, and ready to wreak whatever havoc they could upon Atuma's forces from the rear. It wasn't exactly a brilliant strategy, but it was the best that they could do on short notice.

----

A large blue object that looked like it could have been some kind of strange manta ray drifted casually through the sea. At least that was what anyone who didn't get to close to it would probably assume it was. But if they looked at it from beneath and up close they would see a rather distorted human face, and a kangaroo like pouch containing a human sized figure in heavy armor. Ultra Woman was blending in as only she could, with a rather blissful smile on her face.

"You know it's times like this when I think I might need another new costume or two." Susan couldn't see her husband's face, but she knew for a fact that Reed was raising an eyebrow suspiciously.

"Really Susan, do you intend to somehow redesign your costume to highlight your maternal nature more?" Since it was still about an hour until Atuma was supposedly going to show up, Susan took the effort to shake her head, a decidedly unmanta ray like motion.

"No, I was thinking something much more along the lines in a costume in dull greys and blacks, or maybe blues and greys in this situation, you know something that would really put the 'camo' in camouflage, though I suppose one of the down sides to being a superheroine is that you need to wear bright flashy colors to stand out. Good thing it's not like I need to worry about getting shot." She gave a quick snicker, and Reed for one of the few times Susan had known her didn't have any comments to make. So she just kept on flapping her arms as she drifted through the world. Eventually a much more pressing question than a change of outfit came to her mind.

"So do you think we're doing the right thing?" Reed responded to her question just a bit too literally, or at least interpreted it too literally.

"You mean in helping Namor out of this jam that he seems to have gotten himself into? Not in the least. Whether or not we like it, this is going to turn out to be 'our right' sooner or later, and I'd prefer to do it while we still have as many allies as possible." Susan once again shook her head back and forth again, wondering if she shouldn't find some cover so that she'd be free to use whatever kind of body language she cared to.

"No, I meant about us not calling in a little bit more firepower. I mean stopping some evil overlord to gain control over an entire under water kingdom sounds more or less right up the Avenger's alley. Given how many of those special under water breathing devices we brought with us we could pretty easily provided enough of them for an entire new team of superheroes."

Not that Susan didn't have a considerable amount of faith in the Fantastic Five, but as Reed pointed out you could never have enough allies. But as so many issues that had seriously worried her, Reed had an explanation promptly at hand.

"It would have been nice to, but I hardly consider it likely to have worked out that way. For all we know the Avengers are busy with something else at the moment, and even if they weren't, I somehow doubt that Namor would accept their aid. As temporarily fun as it might be to needle someone who doubtlessly deserves it, I'll worry about making sure that the Prince of Atlantis has learned something until after the danger is over and done with." Susan had no choice but to nod yet again, and then got back to swimming her way across the ocean floor.

--

Sure enough with a surprisingly on the dot promptness (Susan supposed that they probably had some kind of hour glasses filled with water) the army of Atuma appeared. They were dressed in all manner of outfits of various different colors, but it wasn't hard to tell which one was Atuma himself.

He was the largest, and dressed in something that could have almost passed for armor. He was wearing a helmet that had probably started its life as the skull of something much larger, and holding a wicked looking trident. His soldiers were carrying various kinds of weapons not to mention several of them were dragging giant devices behind them.

After catching sight of them (thanks to the momentarily enhanced eye sight she'd been using) Susan began whispering information to Reed who proceeded to relay the information back to Johnny, Crystal and Ben.

He refrained from using the countless more technological means built into his suit just on the incredibly minuscule chance that they might somehow be intercepted, or at least located and used to pinpoint his and Susan's location. Both of them knew that they had a part of play and it wasn't time to tip their hand just yet.

----

Johnny felt the casual tingling sensation that always included being contacted telepathically and sure enough a moment later the words came.

"Looks like we're gonna be business soon. Namor, according to my sister they've brought a some kind of battering ram with them that's in front. It's a long way from their only piece of siege equipment, so they're letting it through. We've got about a minute or two till it gets there. So seeing as we've still got some free time left, did you really take out an entire Japanese aircraft carrier at Midway?"

Namor promptly gave Johnny the kind of look that he normally associated with his sister. To be exact it reminded him of her patented "I don't have time to put up with this now" glare, and it was every bit as effective. A moment later Crystal drifted over, unlike the other two she didn't have her feet planted firmly on the ground, making use of her powers to drift through the undersea world like some kind of wonderful water nymph.

"What surprises me is that they aren't trying to go simply over the walls. I mean, they could just swim over them, right?" Namor shot an entirely different sort of withering look at Crystal.

"My men on the walls are armed with the most powerful weapons from Atlantis armory, we would shoot them down like sea turtles. Now then, if your friends have truly laid eyes upon Atuma's vicious bandits, can you tell me if they have my bride to be with them?" Johnny asked the question and a few moments later he had his answer.

"Yeah, it seems like Atuma himself is dragging her along with him." The Sub-Mariner's face now became a mask of rage. He was no doubt about to let loose with a string of choice invectives when a moment later something very large slammed into the gates, impacting hard enough for Johnny to feel the impact through his feet.

"I guess they're playing our song!" Another heavy impact, then another, and finally with its third strike, and with its fourth blow the entire gate more or less grumbled. Once the thing was broken Johnny took one look at the multilegged walker that the battering ram was mounted on, and then turned towards his wife.

"All right Crys throw me!" Crystal quite calmly waved her hands, and instantly a water pool spun into existence beneath him and a moment later it shot Johnny outwards towards the thing.

---

Susan watched from a considerable distance as her brother proceeded to throw himself pell mell at the giant battering ram, grab hold of it, and start climbing up the side of the thing. A moment later as it was rolled backwards and many of Atuma's minions began to rush towards the broken gate, and countless steams of red shot outwards.

"Your doing?" She asked pleasantly to Reed as she continued to circle closer and closer to Atuma's forces though she was careful to try and keep some piece of cover between her and said armies.

"Yes, I didn't have a lot of time to work with them, but the weapons now have less 'bleed off' into the surrounding water since they're predominantly heat rays now they'll strike with more power. Sure enough Susan could make out countless bubbles raising to the surface in the trail of the Alantian's weapons, and some of their opponent's collapsing as the weapons struck home.

All of a sudden, however something that looked like a kind of ballista fired towards the broken gates of Atlantis. What neither Susan nor Reed expected was that the arrow at the head of that ballista proceed to explode releasing a wave of blackness upon the defenders.

"Hmm, it must be filled with some kind of squid ink... rather ingenious actually. I wouldn't have realized how many different weapons might exist underwater...."

Susan began to flap her way closer to the battle knowing that things were definitely about to take a turn for the worse. With Namor's men unable to see what they were doing, Atuma's forces were able to swarm forward, negating the greater range the defender's weapon's possessed.

"That's great and all, but I think it's time that we commit ourselves to this battle and tell Ben to... well you know what weapons he's got access to better than I do. Either way I'm going to let you go and start looking like something vaguely more menacing than a giant manatee...." Of course what Susan turned herself into when all was said and done once she'd let go of Reed was a pregnant mermaid.

Her children had been quick to figure out that by using their powers to meld their legs together into a fish like tail they'd be able to swim around a lot faster than normal. Not being overly egotistical Susan would admit that if one of her children's flights of fancy proved to be an effective tactic she'd employ it without thinking twice. Likewise Reed had replaced the normal jet pack that was part of his armor with some kind of underwater version of it that predominantly featured two propellers.

"Crystal is doing what she can to clear away the ink, and Ben should be making his presence felt, right about.... now...." A moment later, a pair of large metal objects proceeded to drift downwards towards the open gate of Atlantis. Energy began to course out of them, in effect creating an invisible wall since anyone trying to swim through the area was going to get the shock of their life to say the least.

Of course a moment later the members of Atuma horde has a new target to bellow their rage at, as they realized that the strange thing bobbing up and down in water was actually the heavily armed Fantastisub. At least something around one hundred of the invaders began to swim upwards.

Still that didn't bother Ultra Woman much since she was fairly certain that Ben could look after himself, especially when they turned out to have bigger problems a moment later as a resounding voice filled the air all around them.

"So Prince Namor you reveal yourself to be a coward!" Susan had no trouble at all predicting how the challenged party would respond to a statement like that. Sure enough a moment later he proceeded to emerge from the cloud of darkness, Crystal evidently just barely managing to use her powers to create another powerful wave of water that knocked the two energy mines that Ben had dropped far enough apart that he was able to shoot forward without electrifying himself in the process.

"Who would dare to make such baseless accusations towards the king of the seas?" Atuma came forward still dragging his captive with her.

"I merely speak the truth. Who but a tyrant and a coward would seek an alliance with the surface dwellers?" Namor landed before Atuma his face rippling with rage. "You brought your allies Atuma, I brought mine and besides, who but a coward would kidnap a man's love. If you think I am a coward then let us see how well you do battle without your horde? You and I shall battle here and now just the two of us, and the victory shall do with the loser as he pleases! But first release Lady Dorma!" Atuma just scowled mightily as he let go of Dorma, but only for her to be grabbed by two of his minions.

"And leave you nothing to fear if you have you break your word? Ha! If one of your cursed allies so much as gestures in our direction, then she will pay the price!" Namor waved one hand in the direction of Johnny and Crystal and another in Reed and Susan.

"Stay your hands my friends, I will dispatch this beastly monster just fine myself!" Straight away, Reed proceed to kill his suit's propulsion system, and Susan separated her legs, and the two drifted to the sea floor. Meanwhile Johnny and Crystal took several steps back and the female inhuman began to use her powers to clear away the large cloud of ink, having considerably more success now that there was no longer a full scale battle going on around her.

With the cloud dispersed Namor's soldiers began to raise their voices in support of their sovereign, though they were still being out shouted by Atuma's more numerous followers. A moment later, Atuma swung his trident at Namor, who ducked under it. As it passed over his head, he then used his crouched legs to shoot at Atuma like a torpedo, slamming the blue skinned invader onto his back and causing him to lose his grip on the weapon. Susan smiled for a moment, and then proceeded to rub her belly playfully.

"Well it looks like this is going to be a pretty easy fight. I mean if you weren't able to beat Namor when fighting him on a beach, what are the odds that Atuma will be able to beat Namor underwater?" Reed placed an armored gauntlet on Susan's belly as well, in a surprisingly comforting gesture.

"Pretty low if this is a fair fight. But while I haven't known Atuma all that long, somehow I don't entirely trust him. That's why I'm currently making use of every single scanning system built into my armor." A moment later, he proceed to lift his hand from Susan's hand.

"Sonar reports are back, and without the confusion of the battle going on, I've been able to pick up something big going on beneath us." Susan paused for a very long moment and contemplated what exactly that could mean in this situation.

"Well what are we going to do about it that won't give Atuma a chance to have his goons execute Namor's girlfriend? Not only because it would be a horrible waste of life, but if I didn't know better I'd say that Namor has actually gotten over me. I'd hate to give him a reason to try to score with me on the rebound using the death of his fiancé as a sob story." Reed casually pointed his wrist down at the ground and suddenly a strange little device shot out from the palm of his gauntlet. It proceeded to vanish into the ground and he continued to talk into a perfectly calm tone of voice.

"You'll be happy to know I decided to build this with you particularly in mind, though we haven't had a chance to use it yet. It's an extremely small but powerful drill that could make a hole about an inch across in a bank vault, it shouldn't have any trouble making a path down to whatever is causing those readings through rock." Susan began to take a few steps towards the hole that his newest device was creating.

"So in other words, your plan is to send your pregnant wife down a dark, tiny hole in the ground towards you've got no idea what?" Reed proceeded to give Susan a playful pat of the belly with one hand, and squeeze of the ass with the other.

"Only because I'm so very certain that she'll be able to handle whatever is waiting for her." Sure enough, without further ado Susan managed to squeeze her entire body down into the small burrow. Just like her first batch of kids this second one was elastic enough for her to be able to fit into tiny spaces with remarkable ease. Then she began to slowly move down the tunnel that Reed's device was creating.

The tunnel was small, dark, and cramped, and otherwise the kind of place that would have probably given her a bad case of claustrophobia if it wasn't for the way that her powers let her play with what exactly a "small" enclosed space was. Eventually however the darkness of the tunnel gave way to light, as she spilled out of it.

Susan looked around and found herself in yet another tunnel though this one was larger. It was also illuminated by something that looked like a giant metallic octopus, which seemed to be shinning lights in various directions giving Susan more than enough light to work with.

At the moment she could see that the creation was busy using its arms which seemed to end in drills to bore its way towards Atlantis. A second later, some of its lights fixed quite perceptibly upon Ultra Woman and very slowly the wiring sound made by the drilling arms ceased.

For some reason Susan couldn't help but think that whoever was looking at her probably no more knew what to make of this new arrival, than she did of this mechanical monstrosity. She probably could have figured out a way to press herself against one of the walls of the tunnel, but knew she would have only ended up looking foolish for the attempt.

So instead she did the exact opposite, using her powers to puff herself up and look as big as possible. The drivers of the octopus weren't exactly impressed however, as it proceeded to bring up one of its metal arms which instantly whirred to life and then drove itself directly into Susan's belly, before driving her in turn up against a wall.

Now Susan had taken some pretty bad punches over her last few years, but she had to admit that this one was easily worked its way into the top five. It felt like she imagined having her body trapped inside a washing machine would; a constant spinning sensation that didn't go away until her body had become firmly lodged around the drill like a giant blue stain stuck to it.

Of course quite soon the drill proved unable to burrow any further into the wall because it couldn't puncture Susan body and once more the spotlights fell on her. The tentacle began to wave back and forth but Susan was too firmly wedged onto it to be so easily displaced. Since their present tactic wasn't working the people controlling the octopus decided to instead start banging Susan up against the same tunnel that it had dug.

Sure enough, that scrapped Susan off and left her floating freely in the water like a piece of trash in a lake. Then, apparently feeling that Susan had been suitably dealt with, the other arms of the metal octopus got back to drilling their way towards Atlantis. The thing would need more than giant spinning metal limbs to actually hurt Ultra Woman, but on the other hand it didn't really need to.

Susan wasn't sure what other weapons and how many soldiers might be riding within the octopus but she was sure letting it reach a position where it could drill into the center of Atlantis would be a very bad thing to say the least. So being able to stay in the fight wasn't enough, she had to stop this thing and soon.

Unfortunately while Ultra Woman had taken on her fair share of large opponents in her time as a superheroine, this was the first time she'd had to deal with a robot this large on her own. Slightly despondently she couldn't help but wish blissfully that she was truly super strong as well as super elastic, then she could have just out and out wrestled with this metal monster and torn its limbs clean off. Or if she had her sister in law's powers then she could have either given it a few quick zaps and see if that proceeded to short circuit it with freezing winds to create a weak spot in its armor to long after.

But such was not to be, and so instead she'd just have to work with the superpowers that whatever greater beings ran the universe had decided to give her. Susan reached out and calmly deactivated the device he was wearing on her wrist and then drew in a deep breath and her body began to round out into a large sphere filling with water.

The tentacle which she had gotten drilled by began to rise up again apparently intending to deal her yet another blow, but as it came forward, Susan exhaled. All of the water she'd been sucking in sent her shooting off through the water like a ruptured balloon. Such a technique would have never worked with air, but in her current environment she was able to turn herself into a living bottle rocket and sail past not only the oncoming tentacle, but the backside of the octopus.

As she drifted to a stop, Susan twisted her neck around and saw that apparently there was some kind of clear panel built into the side of the thing, through which she could see a blue skinned members of Atuma's horde who was clearly in control of the thing. Susan straight away extended her arms towards the viewing point and slammed them against it.

Unfortunately, whatever the stuff was, it wasn't anywhere near as fragile looking as it looked. She proceeded to bang her hands on it a few times just to make sure, but without any sort of further success.

Before she knew it however her ears were once again filled with the sound of spinning drills. Undoing the twist in her neck Susan was able to get a good look at an approaching pair of tentacles, and it took all of three seconds for her look of horror on her face to be replaced with one of intense delight. Splashing through the water with her rapidly reappearing mermaid tail once again, Susan swam closer and closer to the viewing port and the two spinning drill arms followed her.

Susan mocked her opponents by stretching out her body so as to become a giant blue blob that completely obscured the view port, even going so far as to stick out her tongue at those inside. Since evidently they didn't have windowshield wipers, they decided to get rid of Susan the most direct way possible, by ramming her with the drill arm.

Things did take a turn for the unexpected at this point, because the sudden sense of on rushing water Susan had been expecting to accompany the shattering glass like material never arrived.

Why became obvious the moment she thought things through of course, since the octopus was being crewed by Atuma's soldiers, it was already filled with water, and the equalization of pressure inside and out was barely noticeable. This minor surprise almost left Susan paralyzed with confusion long enough for the drill arm that had slammed inside the vehicle to get her twisted up in it again.

Luckily, she managed to evade it by compacting her body as much as possible and pushing herself low to the floor. She began to half crawl half stretch across it like an eel towards the soldiers who were manning the machines controls. Though by the time she was heading in their direction they'd already abandoned their post to draw strange looking handguns.

Remembering what Reed had said about how the Atlantean's weapons mostly consisted of various kinds of heat rays rather than powder driven ballistics Susan's eyes began to rapidly sweep around the room trying to figure out the various possible angles of evasion she could take.

Her rubbery body reacted much better than a normal human one when struck by weapons which would leave scorched black flesh, if not only bleached white bones in their wake, but if she took too many hits she might be reduced to nothing more than a melted puddle. Granted the water which surrounded her would probably help her body cool down and recover from such a state fairly quickly, but no reason to chance being immobilized.

So when the two men started shooting, Susan wove her body back and forth for a few moments, before suddenly darting forward and wrapping one arm around either foe's wrists. At that point Ultra Woman's elastic limbs rippled once again and the two were yanked off their feet and tossed together.

Not about to take chances on that being enough to render them unconscious, Susan (who once more at this point possessed a pair of ordinary looking human legs) jumped slightly, laid flat in the middle of her leap and allowed her legs to stretch out and deliver an elongated kick to either warrior's skull.

Both of them slumped quite noticeably after that, (at least they were slumping by the time Susan had extended her neck enough to see over her baby bump) and she figured it was safe to consider them more or less out for the count. After waiting on edge for about half a minute Susan realized that despite the octopus' enormous size these two were the only ones on board, which meant she wouldn't have to worry about dealing with the rest of the crew.

Of course she couldn't exactly just stand around waiting for Reed or one of the others to let her know that the battle going on between Namor and Atuma was over, and yet at the same time if she headed back the way she had came, it was a passageway wide enough only for her and if the two unconscious members of Atuma's horde recovered they might return to whatever devious tasks they had been working on.

Then a solution presented itself of such a blindly obvious nature that she actually slapped her face hard enough to momentarily flatten her nose.

----

There was a shocked silence from all those present when a hole at least twenty feet wide suddenly opened up and a giant red octopus rose up out of it. Everyone stood on edge. Then a moment later, the crimson creature sank back into the tunnel that it had risen from as a much smaller darkish blue creature proceeded to exit from it with two of Atuma's fighters entangled in its body.

Looking around at the countless gasping mouths Susan made her way over to a solid section of the sea floor that she could "sit down" on and then proceeded to look around at the countless surprised faces gazing back at her.

"So what did I miss?" Namor was at her side with the kind of 'blink and it's done' enthusiasm that you normally could only find in cartoons.

"I have defeated Atuma in an honorable single combat! Even when the base rouge revealed to have hidden weaponry concealed within his helmet, the fowl things only managed to fire but one blast before snapping apart. It was a twist of fate which so disoriented him that for the rest of the fight, what little there was of it, I could have thrashed the knave with only my left hand. While the fool sought to claim my throne the closest he will come is languishing for the rest of his days in my dungeons!" Sure enough Susan could see almost half a dozen Atlantean guardsman dragging away a much battered Atuma who barely seemed to be conscious while still more of them clustered around Lady Dorma making sure she was okay.

As for the rest of Atuma's followers, those still capable of it seemed to be departing in every direction imaginable as fast as their flippers could handle it. Susan nodded in approval at the sight of a job well done and then hesitantly turned to face Namor.

"I'm very impressed, but I think you're bride needs you more right now than I do..." Sure enough she could practically hear the light switch flipping on in Namor's head.

"Of course, after all not to defame the battle you have fought today Susan, but my fiancé has doubtlessly endured an even greater hardship during time in that scoundrel's clutches. And where is a king's rightful place if not at his queen's side?" Once more he was off like a shot practically bowling over a few of his own retainers in the process of getting to hid lady's side. Susan slowly began to look around for her own husband. Once she located him a quick reforming of her mermaid tail and a few flaps of it brought her within speaking range.

"So Namor defeated Atuma?" Reed turned in her direction and nodded as Susan once again allowed herself to settle to the sea floor.

"Indeed, and it obviously broke the back of his men, so it seems that we're done being superheroes for the day." Susan heard a hint of something she couldn't quite name in his voice, and so she stretched out an arm wrapping it playful around his shoulder.

"He won all by himself?" Reed looked back at her rather suspiciously.

"Well, of course. Atuma had made it quite clear that none of us where to interfere with the duel." Susan pulled Reed in close, squeezing him against her belly.

"So when his secret weapons suddenly broke, or when he suddenly found it hard to move..." even beneath that metal face plate Susan knew Reed was smiling.

"If you're trying to suggest that I might have had some part to play in Namor's victory … banish the thought." Susan nodded slowly a smile on his face.

"Yes, because I'm sure it'd be a crippling blow to his ego to know that he only won because you were using your telekinesis to subtly influence what should have been a private duel. And considering what he's already been through today he doesn't deserve to have that heaped on his shoulders." The two looked at each other and their eyes said more than their mouths possibly could.

AN: I've got more I want to write about what happens to the FF this month but this chapter is long enough as is and so expect me to add it on to the next one and then do a time jump a month forward like I did in chapter six of Swelling with Love.


	4. Chapter 4

Second Stretches Chapter four: Bursting, in which Susan Richards inspects a playground and Reed Richards liquidates some assets.

And so after Atuma had been suitably dealt with, Namor proceeded to delay his wedding just a little bit more. This gave Dorma some time to recover from her ordeal, and Ben time to ferry Alicia and the kids back to Atlantis so they could witness the proceedings.

Said proceedings were quite impressive. Namor and Dorma's wedding actually managed to be even more ostentatious then Susan and Reed's, a wedding which had seemed to be attended by every single superhero in New York (that wasn't anywhere near as many as there were now but the point still stood) who wasn't in some kind of mortal peril.

Suffice to say, it was the only wedding Susan had been to where "Here Comes the Bride" (or what passed for the Atlantean equivalent of it) was played on trumpet (or once again the Atlantean equivalent of it). That event set the tone for the rest of the ceremony. Afterwards her children at least had the decency to wait until they were back in the Baxter Building to start complaining.

"So you make us sit through that snooze fest, but when mom gets to fight a giant octopus we have to stay home? What a gyp!" Rachel, much like Jane, was in a bit of a sulk though. Of course, even that couldn't keep her from wanting to parse her sister's words whenever possible.

"More like, Mom fighting a giant, MECHANICAL, octopus which, of course, makes it just that much cooler!" To Susan's immense surprise at this point her brother, for one of the few times she could remember such an occurrence, decided to side with his sister instead of his nieces and nephews.

"Now now kids, you probably ended up spending enough time underwater anyway. Reed, are you sure that your fancy wrist bracelets work exactly the way you said they would? Because while I wasn't going to say anything while we had an evil villain to defeat, I think spending so much time under the sea has given Crys a cold." Crystal shook her head as calmly as possible.

"Don't be silly JoHNNNYYYYY!" Her attempt at reassurance was somewhat drastically undercut by the fact that midway through it she broke out into a loud sneeze. Crystal blushed slightly. Since she lacked easy access to a napkin proceeded to carefully make use of her powers to evaporate the remnants of her sneeze. After she had done this, a slight blush began to creep into her face as she made another go at explaining the situation to her husband.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure it's just something that I ran into underwater that still needs to work its way out of my system, sort of like the undersea equivalent of pollen." At this particular point, Johnny was looking mildly worried. Reed and Susan were exchanging glances that were considerably more so, as if each was silently daring the other to speak up. Finally Reed being more or less the official team leader decided to be the one to spit it out.

"Johnny, you would mind it if I went and ran a few tests on Crystal in my lab? You're welcome to come along of course..." Johnny at this point had a look of such benign perplexity on his face that Susan actually felt a couple dozen pangs of regret for him.

-----

One series of lab results later Reed Richards had his answer, and it turned out to be the one that he'd expected from the start.

"Well Crystal, there's some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you didn't come down with some sort of special undersea parasite or disease. The bad news is that you're pregnant." Johnny's flesh went from being its traditional shade of pink to a metallic grey in the blink of an eye, as if this would grant him some form of protection against this turn of events.

"Crys, you're pregnant? How did this happen?" Susan buried her face in her hands sighing mightily. She contemplated what it would mean if her Jonathan Spencer Storm actually had kids of his own that he couldn't pick and choose when he cared to look after them.

"I thought you two were taken precautions against this kind of thing. In fact I distinctly remember giving you a lecture about it, Crystal. Between the six I've already got, and the eight more on the way, add in however many you're carrying, and this place is going to look less like a superhero headquarters and more like a nursery!"

"You know that's not a bad idea..." Susan sent Reed a look which suggested that him saying those words were right up there with not having arranged for proper radiation shielding on the rocket they'd tried to take to the moon on the list of the ten biggest mistake he'd made in his life. But as usual once Reed Richards got an idea into his head he couldn't resist examining it from all possible angles and voicing his thoughts aloud.

"After all, given how many different labor saving devices I've come up with when it comes to child care. With how secure the Baxter Building is, there are doubtlessly worse ideas than offering it up as a safe place for other superheroes to leave their children, where they can be sure that they won't come to any harm." Susan needed to close her eyes and remind herself of all the different reasons why she loved her husband, that way when she opened them again she'd be able to resist the temptation to throttle him within an inch of his life.

"So how many is Crystal carrying and how far along?" This time it didn't upset her that Reed was quick with an answer.

"Four of them and she's only about one month along." There was a flash of realization in Johnny's eyes and his body transformed back to being made of flesh.

"Oh, okay, in that case, umm... do you remember right after we agreed to ignore the Impossible Man and just basically do whatever? Well, right after we got back I was a bit too busy thinking about how this was supposedly going to help save the city that I forgot to take certain precautions..." Susan's forehead became extremely well aquatinted with both of her palms yet again.

"Crystal, in retrospect, this is why it sort of behooves you as a woman to take care of looking after that kind of thing yourself." Of course Susan had no sooner said those particular words than she realized how hypocritical it was of her to say them. Part of being a parent or older sibling was to be able to tell certain people "do as I say not as I do." Johnny was very slowly struggling to reboot his mind after the shock her was given.

"So umm, Crystal, do you want to keep them?" Crystal's eyes sparkled with the kind of glow that only a first time mother could manage.

"Of course!" Johnny very slowly shifted a hand behind his head and began to rub the back of his neck.

"Well, okay then. I guess on the bright side, we're going to get a chance to raise some kids without my sister and brother in law looking over our shoulder all the time. But still seriously four kids, wow, you're going to get pretty big, I mean what were the odds?" Crystal's eyes now flashed with something else entirely and she proceeded to look back towards Reed rather beseechingly.

"Well, you know how I mention that the Inhuman's reproductive cycle works slightly differently than your human one does because of the genetic modification that we underwent? You see, part of it was designed so that it'd be easy for them to continue certain bloodlines. So while we're only fertile one day a month, we also tend to ovulate several eggs at once. That's why I wasn't surprised to find out that Medusa was having twins. I mean Medusa and I were paternal twins as are Blackbolt and Maximus." Johnny looked at Crystal again for a few moments.

"Huh, really? Wow, because Medusa, well except when she had her amnesia always managed to seem a bit more, well mature than you do, not that I mean that as an insult on anything." There was a long pause, and then Crystal shrugged slightly.

"That's mainly because Blackbolt fell in love with her at a pretty early age so she grew up expecting to be queen some day." Susan coughed loudly intending to bring this conversation back on track.

"As fascinating as I'm sure my husband finds all of this, is the Fantastic Five really going to become a team with not one, but two pregnant superheroines on it?" Johnny looked back at her with his usual expression of devil-may-care laziness.

"Sure, why not?" Susan proceeded to punch herself in the chest hard enough to completely flatten her three month pregnant belly for a moment. Then she did it again, and again.

"Because I can do this or worse to myself all day long without getting hurt. If Crystal takes one bad fall, let alone a laser blast from some evil villain it could put her kids at risk." Crystal evidently intending to point out exactly what "or worse" could mean, proceeded to raise up her gloved hands and let loose with a powerful blast of flame in Susan's direction. One moment she was a rather bemused pregnant woman, the next she was an extremely irritated puddle of blue on the floor.

"Well that's another thing that's different about us Inhumans, we're very hardy, and we aren't prone to having any sort of troubles involving pregnancy. I'm sure I'll be able to keep up with the rest of the team the same way you have, Susan. Besides, unlike you, Johnny, or Reed I'm not usually getting in the thick of things. Since it's my job to stand back and provide 'tactical support' I should still be up to it at least into the start of my third trimester."

Susan was still struggling to form a face with which to shoot a worried look at the team's leader, but it apparently wasn't even worth wasting her time on. Crystal was doubtlessly more mature then her brother, but if she'd learned anything from working side by side with her for the last few years, it was that when the Inhuman princess put her mind to something she'd get her way sooner or later.

So Susan metaphorically bowed to the inevitable and once she was able to manifest a mouth the first words she said was, "Well then, I suppose we should make time to have another talk so I can let you know about a few useful tricks I learned during my first nine months of combining superheroics with pregnancy...."

----

When they broke the news to the kids a series of wide eyed surprised stares were sent in the direction. Once they had subsided Rachel began to speak in the slow and cautious tone of one who was wadding into uncertain waters.

"So first Aunt Medusa got pregnant, and then you got pregnant mom. Now Aunt Crystal is pregnant. Are you sure that this 'pregnant' thing is something we don't have to worry about catching?" Before any of the adults had a chance to answer Jane snickered slightly and used her powers to produce her own miniature baby belly which was given her slight stature actually looked "larger" than her mother's real one at the moment.

She wasn't the only one of Susan's daughters who quickly adopted that surreal shape either. A superheroine who had faced down countless foes bent on world domination Ultra Woman was at that moment left unable to do anything at that moment but shake her head, and muse on how imitation was the sincerest form of flattery after all.

-----

(One month later)

Samantha Richards ran for all she was worth. She was worth quite a lot, too. Thanks to her powers she had incredible stamina and thanks to some much longer than normal legs each step she took carried her farther than your average adult's stride, let alone how quickly a girl her age should have been able to move.

Unfortunately it still wasn't enough as her pursuer continued to cling to her heels, following her as closely as smoke did fire. The formless blob oozed across the floor like greased lightening eating away at her lead inch by inch. Samantha's only small advantage was that she could twist her neck around to see how much of her minuscule lead was left without slowing down much. But in the end this just made her all the more aware of the fact that her pursuer was gaining on her. She'd already seen it ooze over her siblings and it wouldn't be long until...

She never managed to finish that train of thought because she felt one of her feet come down in something soft and squishy instead of hard and solid. The blob oozed around her leg bending it so that it couldn't support her weight and Samantha fell face forward onto the ground.

It didn't hurt, but it wasn't the impact that she was worried about. She stretched out her hands grabbing hold of the solid objects she could find and strove to pull herself free, but it proved a wasted effort. Inch by inch the blob oozed over her, and for every inch away from it she stretched it covered two more inches of her body. The end result was inevitable as it managed to completely and utterly engulf her eventually at which point everything became dark. She felt herself being buffeted around slightly and then landed some place warm, and from the sound of breathing which surrounded her she wasn't alone.

"I do believe our glorious leader has finally joined us." Samantha stretched out an arm and punched in the general direction she'd heard the voice come from. "Blast it, Benjamin. Now is no time to for us to be fighting with each other. Maybe if we work together, all six of us stretch in six different directions we can pull this thing apart from the inside." It was Jane's voice that answered her words.

"You think we didn't try that? It didn't work with five, and it's not gonna work with six." Then a voice that didn't belong to any of her siblings joined the conversation.

"If you don't want to spend the next few minutes blinking I'd suggest you close your eyes." They all followed the instructions, and a moment later the blackness faded away and once again there was light in the world. The six stood up at various points, and Franklin took a moment to reflect on their situation.

"Well we lost again." The body of their mother transformed itself from the amorphous blob that had captured them to her usual appearance.

"Well two of you actually managed to get out of the room this time." Benjamin huffed in irritation.

"If you want call being able to plant one foot outside the room before getting yanked back in 'getting out' mom." Susan lazily coiled her neck around her dark haired son. "Hey, you crossed the doorframe, and that's what mattered. Besides, I'm sure each and every one of you had your average individual time increase, and as for the total, well let me just take a look..." Susan checked an unstable molecule watch that her husband had made for her and smiled at what she saw.

"Forty three seconds, sure enough you beat your old time." Rachel seemed to randomly increase and decrease the length of her fingers for a few moments before commenting.

"Still less than a full minute. Heck that's just barely more than seven seconds for each of us. Not that the mean is a very good measure in this case since it was really more like ten seconds of grabbing all five of us, ten seconds of dealing with us bouncing around inside of you, and then twenty three seconds of chasing down Sam." Susan pulled her neck back to its normal length and confidently lay on her side smiling at her children.

"Well that's the reason why in all honesty I decided that I shouldn't be known as Not Bad Woman, or Pretty Good Woman, or even Great Woman, but instead went with Ultra Woman." Benjamin scowled up at his mother as he stretched his way over to a nearby kitchen counter, sitting down on it so that he could look her in the eye without needing to stretch his neck upwards to a rather ridiculous degree.

"Well what really matters is that we're gonna get stronger and stretchier as we grow up. In another few years you won't be able to take two of us at the same time let alone all six!" Though there was plenty of truth to his words (while her children would probably never stretch any better than their mother if they perfected their psychic powers then it would give them a considerable advantage over her) she couldn't help but find how energetic her children were to have themselves considered genuine superheroes rather cute in its way.

"You've still got a fair bit more growing to grow before that, of course." She playfully looped a hand around his waist giving him a quick 'hug', enjoying another brief show of mothering that was destined not to last. Susan wouldn't be surprised if one or even all of her children ended up being taller than she was, since her 5'6" wasn't an especially high bar to clear, and they had their over six foot tall father's genes to help them achieve that particular goal.

Jane who being down on the ground only came up to her mother's waist let loose with a slight groan of irritation.

"Yeah, yeah, we've all heard it before. I just can't believe that we'll have to wait till we're thirteen years old before we really start growing more elastic. That's going to be forever!" Susan bent down and patted her daughter's unruly mop of blond hair as she griped about the speculations Reed had made concerning the rate at which the children's powers would assert themselves.

"Now, now, I'm sure once you've the batch full of younger sisters and brothers I'm carrying within me at the moment to play around with it'll make time fly by for you a lot faster." At the very least Susan was certain that it would end up making her days fly by a lot faster with so many different daughters and sons to look after. Rachel joined her brother up on the table but only because it made it easier to lean up against a wall.

"Not to mention Uncle Johnny and Aunt Crystal's kids." Samantha remained on the floor gazing down at it.

"Yeah, but they won't be able to stretch like us." Franklin seemed rather taken aback by this information.

"Really?" Valeria also opted for choosing herself a seat on the highest ground available crossing her legs neatly once she had found the spot she wanted.

"Of course, they won't. They'll be able to control the elements like Aunt Crystal and turn to metal like Uncle Johnny. Kids take after their parents like that." At least Susan and Reed's had, not even Mister Fantastic was 100% certain of what would result when you mixed a human whose DNA had been altered by cosmic rays with an Inhuman, the children might be born with the exact same powers as one or both of their parents, or they might develop entirely different powers but only after being exposed to the Terrigan Mists. Samantha had a slightly melancholy look on her face as she contemplated sister's words.

"Yeah, but still that means those four won't be able to do a lot of the stuff that we can do for fun." Franklin on the other hand openly winced in response to them.

"I bet it must hurt not to be able to stretch, sooner or later at least. I mean you walk into something you get hit by something..." Susan coughed "loudly" and sure enough all of her children's eyes were focused on her in an instant.

"I know that you consider your powers the norm because it's all you ever know, but believe it or not I was born not being able to stretch." Jane began to nod along with the bored expression of a child who has heard a particular speech one time too many.

"Yeah mom and that was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and people had to rewind movies before they could watch them again. Go ahead, tell us what it was like..." Susan shot her a disapproving glare, though she was willing to admit that Jane had a point. With every passing year Susan's memories of exactly what it had been like not to have her powers tended to get a bit dimmer.

That was the natural way of things, of course, but it meant that Susan did in fact have a harder and harder time remembering when accidentally getting her hands caught in a door was a problem, or she might have ever actually broken a nail. But that didn't mean she liked her children taking their powers for granted, and acting as if everyone else was handicapped because they lacked a particular superpower instead of simply consider those who did have them to be incredibly lucky. She could quite clearly foresee how her own children's playful style of rubbery rough housing could lead to problems if her brother in law's children were subjected to it, especially if before they learned how to transform their skin into something harder than steel.

"That's not what matters at the moment, Jane. To bring this conversation back around to original topic, while it might be a few years until you can all stretch your bodies as far as I can, it never hurts to practice." Benjamin continued to wear a rather sour scowl upon his face.

"Maybe so, but given that they're our powers, how come we're always practicing them in the ways that you guys want?" Susan proceeded to get a big leggier, adding a good solid two inches to her height so that once again none of her children couldn't meet her eyes without tilting their neck upwards.

"That would be because I've had considerably more experience in life or death situations with my powers than any of you have had, and thus I know some tricks of the trade that you'd probably have a hard time figuring out on your own." Not to mention there were some things that Susan knew she could do with her powers that she didn't want any of her children to end up learning for one reason or another. Jane took one look at her mother's longer legs and proceeded to stretch her neck out to a degree which would have done a giraffe proud until the two were eye to eye.

"Well that was a fine way to start with, but these days we don't seem to have lessons based around particular techniques all that often." Samantha nodded and a moment later stretched her neck out as well, though it didn't have anywhere near as far to go as Jane's.

"Not to mention we've always got to do our training in here. I mean I know this place is huge, but it sometimes seems like I've been living my entire life inside this one sky scraper. Would it kill us to be able to go someplace else to train?" Rachel saw an opportunity and straight away got to building upon her sister's question.

"Yeah mom, we did figure out how to do that mermaid tail thing in Atlantis before you did. Maybe we'd be able to figure out some other new ways to stretch that you haven't even thought of if we got a chance to just get turned loose some place that wasn't made up entirely of ninety degree angles and grey walls." Valeria now latched onto the idea with a vengeance.

"You and Dad are rich as rich can be right? So how about getting us our own private island?" Oh boy did that particular idea make a full dozen blue eyes sparkle like sapphires and half a dozen mouths practically salivate. Jane began to nod as quickly as she could, her long next making the action rather ungainly.

"Oh man, that would be so cool! You know some place that we could go to just do whatever with our powers, even if only during the weekends! Please?" The others weren't fair behind but Susan decided to take action before she got buried under a veritable avalanche of requests.

"I'll talk to your father about it. It's his money you'll be spending after all." Of course what she left unsaid was that given the way that Reed Richards seemed to turn out different inventions and patents for them in his sleep, it probably took a man of his intellect just to be able to properly count how much money he had these days. But this was no reason to swell her children's heads even further.

The response she got to her answer was immediate in that from their different positions around the room, every single one of her children elongated their arms and found a different section of her body to hug.

"Mom you're the best!"

-----

After managing to wiggle her way out of that six way embrace (it was trickier than it sounded given that her children didn't seem to want to let go possibly in a small way of getting back at her for how she'd managed to capture all of them again) she headed off to her husband's lab. As usual Reed proceeded to be as magnanimous with money as ever, and was no sooner introduced to the idea got to work searching for something that would be suitable.

Even in between all his other work he had his answer inside a week and called Susan to his lab so he could show it to her. After taking one quick look at the thing the pregnant mother reflected upon her experiences as Ultra Woman and knew what questions she had to ask right off the bat.

"Before we get started Reed, is this particular island 'uninhabited' and formed by volcanic activity?" Reed who wasn't wearing his armor at the moment flushed slightly.

"Well yes. But Susan, do please realize that past volcanic activity is just about the only way that new land masses are created, give or take some other kind of disaster separating one that already exists into two or more pieces. But look on the bright side, as you can plainly see, the volcanic activity never lead to the formation of a volcano itself above ground." Susan took another look at the island. It did at least look less ominous than plenty of others she had ended up visiting.

"Would I be correct if I guessed that there's a system of underground caves?" Reed nodded calmly and Susan took a step closer, stretching out her neck until her nose was practically touching the image of the island in question being displayed on the screen of one of the many computers that filled her husband's lab.

"In short, there's still no logical reason to think that this couldn't be a supervillian lair, is there?" Reed nodded calmly as he pressed a few more buttons on his computer.

"None at all, Susan. That's why we're going to investigate it ourselves before we even think about having our children so much as set a single foot down on this island." Susan nodded quite calmly.

"And by 'us' you mean the entire Fantastic Five, rather than just you and me, right?" Reed nodded serenely.

"Exactly, Susan. Let's just hope that we're only being overly paranoid." Susan just shrugged her shoulders giving off her own serene smile.

"Look on the bright side, Reed, its only paranoia when nobody has a reason to plot against you."

---

"So let me make sure that I understand this correctly. We're going to be going to go to this uninhabited island, the kind of place that supervillians JUST LOVE to use to hide their armies and the doomsday weapons with which they plan to conquer the world, and we're going to do this just so that we can get your kids a new playground?" Susan lengthened both her neck and her right arm so that she could get a good look at her brother and even feel out his head.

"Wait a moment. What is this? Is my brother actually sounding like a rational human being? I don't believe it! Where's the risk taking daredevil I've had to put up with for all my life? Are you coming down with a fever?" Johnny transformed his flesh to metal just so that he could swat her sister's hands away hard enough to make it slam into a wall on the other side of the room.

"Hey quit it. I only take risks when it means doing something cool or fun, and there's nothing cool or fun about going supervillian hunting since we run into enough of them in our everyday lives. I don't see why my brother in law Reed 'I can invent anything' Richards can't just whip up some kind of virtual reality device if you want to give your kids some place new to run around and have fun? That way, we wouldn't get caught up in another adventure that leads to us all of us only just getting away by the edge of our teeth." Susan looked first at her brother, and then at his wife, both women happened to be giving off expressions of polite befuddlement. Then all of a sudden she broke into a gale of laughter.

"Oh my god, it's actually happened! I had hoped it would, but I couldn't be sure, but now it's official, you've come down with a horrible case of FTFS." Even Reed got a slight chuckle out of that statement, though Johnny continued to look around the room, clearly knowing that there was some joke going on, he just didn't know the punch line.

"Okay, you know what? I think this doubtlessly has to be the very first time that I've ever been having a conversation with the two of you, and it's my sister who has left me completely and utterly unable to figure out what is being talking about. So who wants to take pity on me and explain?" Ultra Woman volunteered up the fact of the manner straight away.

"It stands for First Time Father Syndrome. Symptoms include sudden realization of your own, and even more frequently your wife's mortality, tackling anyone who brings a bottle of liquor into the same room as your pregnant wife regardless of the reason why, and in general previously unexpected levels of maturity.

I figure that FTFS is the only possible reason why you wouldn't want to pick up everything and suddenly go visit an 'uninhabited island' and possibly end up fighting some monster that looks like it never should have existed in the first place. I mean I might have expected this kind of stuff from Ben, but from you? Of course I could be wrong I mean maybe you're just getting on in years?" Sure enough when it came to her brother's mind Susan didn't need her husband's psychic powers to get him to do what she wanted.

"Oh come on! If that's how you're gonna be then fine, I and quite possibly my wife who happens to be pregnant with four kids at the moment, will be heading out to this "skull island" or whatever it's called and we'll just see what happens. Crystal, do you want to get involved in this particular disaster in the making?" Crystal openly smiled at her husband's fuming.

"Of course I'll come. After all my own kids might end up doing some training of their own on this island if things turn out well enough. I'll also see if there isn't anything I can't do to put my husband in a slightly better mood..." With that Crystal got up to follow Johnny out of the room, while Reed and Susan prepared themselves for the task of convincing Ben to come along with them as well.

---

As it turned out, that was actually easier done than said, perhaps because this time around unlike with Atlantis there was no chance that Alicia would be put in danger during the mission. So before they knew it the team was headed out towards the island in question. The team had decided to take the "Pogo Plane" which was technically more of an intercontinental ballistic missile turned transport vehicle than an actual plane. As Susan got her first look at the island a small smile threatened to twitch at her lip.

"Well, well, it looks likes its now pretty clear why exactly this place was for sale so cheaply. The view might be nice but the location leaves a lot to be desired." To be exact the location of the island just happened to be in the middle of some kind of barrier reef. Reed began to carefully examine the island as well.

"While I can't be completely sure, the odds are probably pretty good chance that clearing a path through it would cause considerable ecological damage. It's too far out to sea for a helicopter to reach it from the mainland, which means that it's probably near impossible to access. Of course for us that'll be no problem at all. Not that it wouldn't be a prudent to see about constructing a reasonably sized landing strip across it in the near future." Johnny, who still seemed to be in an unusual sulk despite Crystal's best efforts, let loose with a snort of contempt.

"That assumes that it's still standing by the time we're done kicking the tires and looking under the hood." Ben who seemed to be taking Johnny's bad mood as an excuse to be unusually jovial himself began to undo his restrains.

"You know if it gets any cheerier in here we just might have to establish a two drink minimum. I think I'm going to step outside and get a bit of fresh air." Reed was about to raise some object (Susan expected it had to do with the possible dangers that Ben might be exposing himself to, not to mention what dangers the craft might suffer from the change in pressure in mid flight) but he opened the door all the same, and took to the wing, though he was kind enough to slam it shut on his way out.

A few moments later Susan heard his "voice" contact her and the rest of the team through the mental link that Reed always took the time (and effort) to set up when the team might be going into battle.

/Well so far so good. There aren't any eighty eights or SAMs opening up on me so that's something at least. I'll go try and pick out a particularly good landing spot.\ Reed checked the screen again and then smiled.

/While I appreciate the effort on your part Ben, it's hardly necessary, my equipment has already picked out a good spot for us to put down on.\ To prove his point he proceeded to take his hands off the controls and pick up his facemask, attaching it to the rest of his armor that he'd already donned before even setting foot in the Pogo Plane.

As the vehicle's landing thrusters fired, Susan felt the usual jerking sensation which also as usual (at least based off her experiences during her first pregnancy) set her unborn children bouncing about her womb.

"Oomph, only four months along and already they're practicing how to take down supervillians." Crystal however kept a blithe smile on her face all the while as she playfully stroked her own stomach which possessed only the slightest hint as to the fact that she was pregnant.

"Speak for yourself, Susan, my kids are being quite as mice at the moment." A part of Ultra Woman once again couldn't help but mentally ponder just how unfair it was the way that the difference between what pregnancy entailed for a human and for an inhuman could be so vast. However by the time the Pogo Plane had finished setting down she'd managed to make herself content with the knowledge that however blissfully easy Crystal might sail through the process of having her children grow within her, Susan was going to end up having a much easier labor, by far.

Then she easily slid free of her restraints and got to work disembarking from the Pogo Plane, refraining from making use of the handles attached to the side of the ship, instead simply flowing down the ship's length using a pair of extra long arms to brace herself, and thus avoid momentarily turning herself into a pancake upon landing.

Crystal likewise used her own powers to ease her decent, generating a miniature tornado so that she drifted to the ground like a leaf. Reed and Johnny on the other hand actually bothered to climb down, and Ben landed next to them a few moments later. Johnny, at this point, proceeded to transform his body from flesh to metal and then wrap an arm on the back of his brother in law's armor.

"So Reed, how about a little psychic sonar pulse to see if we actually are alone out here?" Before Reed could make use of powers they got their answer in the most direct way imaginable.

The section of rock that they had parked their craft under suddenly seemed to give way as if it had been struck by a miniature earthquake. Susan wrapped one arm around her husband and another around a nearby rock formation that seemed to be as stable as anything else nearby.

Without even asking for an invitation Johnny proceeded to grab hold of Susan to brace himself against as well, while Crystal and Ben used their powers to take to the air. When the shaking finally subsided, another rocky outcropping had given way so as to prevent any of them (except possibly Susan) from trying to head downwards and find out exactly what had happened to their craft. Johnny looked down at the area where only a few moments ago the Pogo Plane had been and then smiled and pumped his arm in the air.

"Oh yeah, it's official. We've walked into a supervillian trap! Man, all that uncertainty really was the pits. Okay, lets go find whoever was behind this beat them thirty two different shades of black and blue, and go home." Susan blushed, actually rather pleased to have the brother she remembered back. The familiar really did have a comfort all of its own after all. As Ben landed back on solid ground he kicked at a few loose rocks.

"Well it'd would probably help if we knew who exactly we were dealing with. You have any ideas how we can figure that out professor?" Reed gingerly placed an arm on Crystal's shoulder as she placed her feet on hopefully solid ground once again.

"I have a few theories. To start with Crystal did your elemental powers give you any warning of that.... event which swallowed the Pogo Plane?" Crystal shook her head back and force and then bent down to run her hands along the ground itself.

"I'm not picking up any residual after affects of elemental manipulation, at least none other than my own. Which means whoever did this is either vastly more powerful than I am, or they simply made use of more conventional, means to cause that shake up. " Reed nodded slowly as he scratched his chin, or at least would have it wasn't for his armor getting in the way.

"So in other words excavation, pullers and levers, not to mention somehow being able to know when exactly we landed. Though I suppose it's equally likely that they might have designed this island's surface in such a way that landing where we did would be the only reasonable choice, and then setting things up so that his trap would spring was sufficient weight was placed upon it. It certainly would seem the easier of the two, though it probably would prove remarkably easy to hide a camera among all these rocky outcroppings.

Now then as for that mental sonar pulse you were asking for Johnny..." The answer came back a few moments later he pointed out towards one nearby section of rock.

"There's something over there. Whoever it is they're doing something to prevent me from being able to read their thoughts, but they can't hide their location from me. Susan, use your powers to maneuver your way through this place. Ben, get back in the sky and see if you can spot anything that looks vaguely intelligent. Johnny and Crystal, you follow me. We'll try to keep Susan from getting too far ahead of us." Having received her orders Susan got to work at once. She didn't bother trying to walk to her destination, instead she started stretching her body off in the direction Reed had pointed. Sure enough the wisdom of having Susan act as a scout became extremely clear as she found the most direct path imagine able littered with all kinds of obstacles.

Obstacles that Ultra Woman was able to laugh off however as she thinned her body down to be as flat as a sheet of paper letting her slip under some, or managed to fit herself through holes that shouldn't have been large enough to work her pregnant belly through, let alone the rest of her body as well. In the process she left behind her elongated blue body so that her teamates an easy trail to follow. As she did so however she felt Ben's mental voice echo through her mind.

/Well I'm up here, but I'm not seeing anything Reed. This island looks even more like a giant maze from up here than it did from down there. But maybe if Suzy Q could spook our mystery host into moving then I'd be able to catch sight of him.\ Just as Ben was finished making his request, Susan caught sight of a shadowy figure crouching in a rocky overhang.

"Hey who are you?" It wasn't the wisest tactical move possible to announce her presence ahead of time, but being a superheroine (especially one with no secret identity) meant that you were suppose to be the good cop no matter what. There was a possibility (an extremely minuscule possibility) that whoever this was happened to be an innocent bystander who had somehow wound up stranded on the island.

But the figure's actions more or less doused any hope she had of that being the case, since they proceeded to scramble up the side of the rocky incline they had been hiding underneath and then take off running at a surprisingly quick pace. Susan chased after her target, elongating her body up the side of the incline, to keep hot on their heels. As the distance closed she got a better look at the figure she was chasing after and it was clear that he was male, was short and had a large green cloak on. That was all the information which Ultra Woman needed to make a pretty substantial guess about who exactly was behind all of this.

"Oh no you don't!" Her opponent might have been a pretty spry fellow, but she doubted he'd be able to flat out outrun Ultra Woman's elastic arms. Except that apparently her prey had given this possibility plenty of forethought because as he passed into what looked like some kind of underground cavern, another section of rock shook itself free.

What made this all the more dramatic however was the fact the section of rock that came loose happened to be in the shape of a pair of handcuffs that landed directly on top of Susan's outstretched arms pinning them in place against the ground. She began to jerk her limbs and forth angrily but wasn't able to get them free, and the weight the rocks placed upon her arms was too much of a burden for her to continue stretching them forward.

So Ultra Woman was left with nothing to do but wiggle her immobilized limbs and back and forth while slowly retracting her legs as she felt her teammates working their way along her body. Eventually however the other four members of the team caught up with her and Reed tenderly placed an arm on Susan's shoulder as he saw her struggling with her restraints.

"Do you need a hand?" Susan blushed and nodded.

"Yeah those things didn't just land on top of my arms, they buried themselves into the ground so that I can't get them free!" Reed nodded quite calmly as he approached the rocky handcuffs.

"Well then, while I'm normally a proponent of solving problems by outthinking them, I haven't been a superhero for five years without recognizing that sometimes a sufficient quantity of brute force has a quality all its own." At that point Reed let loose with a pair of concussion blasts from his armor's gauntlets before getting to work simply hammering the rock formation which trapped his wife's limbs into dust.

Johnny pitched in with a punch or two of his own once he figured out what was going on and Crystal tossed in a lightning bolt, all of which added together to make sure it wasn't long before Susan was calmly rubbing her once more free wrists.

"Okay, I might have gotten caught by that stupid thing but now I'm pretty darn sure I know who is responsible for all of this." Before Susan could answer, a figure dressed in a green cloak stepped out from behind a nearby stalagmite, and he wasn't alone. To be exact, he was being escorted by at least a score of small yellow creatures that were only about three feet high.

"Welcome to my trap Fantastic Five!" Johnny sighed heavily as he examined the supervillian standing before the group.

"Oh great it's the Mole Man. You know what's the most pathetic part of all this? This is the SECOND time we've gone and bought something that it turns out you already own. This is gonna be the kind of thing that we're going to have a good long laugh about once we're done shutting down whatever evil villainous plan you're working on this time around! I mean would it kill you to diversify a little?" In response the Mole Man bitterly slam his staff into the ground in silent seething anger. Though the thing seemed to be made of ordinary wood, every member of the Fantastic Five knew that it was perfectly capable of releasing powerful bolts of energy at distant targets, and producing even stronger surges of the stuff into anyone unlikely enough to actually be struck by the staff.

That said considering that the Mole Man had been the very first supervillian the team had taken on (back when they were the Fantastic Four, though ironically they'd fought him a second time shortly after Crystal had unofficially joined the team but before it had become the Fantastic Five) and all things consider Susan couldn't help but view him as the Yugo of supervilliany.

Yes, he had all the classic hallmarks of a proper supervillian: a hatred for the rest of humanity based on how they had "mistreated him" (if you considered the vague unplesantries that accompany being born ugly, 'mistreatment') in the past, an army of unquestioningly loyal servants, a plethora of secret bases, an actual superpower himself (a highly turned sixth sense which allowed him to manipulate dark caverns with ease) and had even show a real talent for being to be able to create various plots for how he could either conquer or destroy the portion of the world that knew what shape the sun was.

Yet, despite seeming to meet all of the qualifications the only time he'd ever been able to seriously menace Susan and her teammates was when he'd caught them completely and utterly by surprise to the degree that Reed wasn't wearing his armor. Today he had only managed to take the Fantastic Five by "surprise" to the same extent that you were "surprised" when you felt the first drops of water splash on your head after going for a walk on a day when the sky was full of grey clouds. At the moment the Mole Man clearly was most displeased with Johnny's quip, a vicious smile playing upon his lips.

"Oh believe me I have much to tell you. But first let me see to your proper arrangements..." He then calmly tapped his staff against the ground and suddenly the cave's floor gave way beneath the superheroes. As they plummeted Susan could look up and see that a number of rocks were joining them in heading downward, making any attempt to fly back towards the Mole Man seem more or less suicidal.

They didn't have time to compare mental notes, but the other members of the Fantastic Five apparently came to the same conclusion as Ben dived downwards trying to position himself so that none of the falling debris would land on him. Crystal and Reed both began to let loose with streams of energy (one generated by the Inhuman's mysterious control over the elements the other by pure technological innovation) each proving equally adept at shattering many of the larger rocks above them.

Ultra Woman for her part quickly managed to stretch her body out into a wide soft living parachute intending to serve double duty as a blanket which would protect her teammates from the falling debris. As she did so, Susan discovered that apparently there was some kind of very powerful updraft shooting upwards from beneath her, since in her now flattened appearance, she floated right up into the rocks. Not wanting to get separated from her teammates she curled her body around one of them, and let the rocks weight carry her to whatever awaited the Fantastic Five.

As it turned out, this happened to be a surprisingly soft landing. As she uncurled her body Ultra Woman realized she and the others had landed on some kind of wire mesh net. As Reed was recovering from the fall and inspecting the floor slowly.

"Susan, do you think you could slip through this stuff?" It took her less than five seconds to get a finger through the mesh, and less than ten to get her whole right arm.

"Getting through would be a cake walk, but I'm not sure how good an idea it would be to head down there..." Beneath the mesh Susan could quite clearly see the huge fan that had been billowing air upwards which had slowed their fall. Though said spinning blades wouldn't be able to slice her rubbery body into pieces, they could considerably inconvenience her, and she'd have no idea what lay below it.

Given that she was in a supervillian liar, the odds were pretty decent that it would be bubbling hot lava, the kind which would melt her and then before she would know it drag her beneath its surface to either drown or possibly evaporate her body. So for the moment, it was probably better to stick with a teammate, and having decided that the most obvious path of escape was out of the question, she might as well take a closer look around.

The team seemed to be surrounded by a fifteen or so foot high wall made out of some glowing green material. One look at the thing was all she needed to make her want to scuttle as far away from it as possible, except that moving away from one edge of the circular wall just took her closer to another one, and so the most she could achieve was to stand more or less in the middle of the arena she'd landed in.

"Umm... Reed, this might just be my paranoia getting the better of me, but in retrospect it's more or less been spot on today so... is that wall radioactive?"

"It is indeed, Mrs. Richards!" Looking up she saw that the Mole Man was now sitting on a plush throne with a small collection of his yellow skinned servants (the moleoids if Susan's memory served) gathered around him.

"It was made from considerable amounts of radioactive material gathered by my most faithful and powerful servants who could be exposed to such energy without being harmed. In its current form, the sheer energy of it would flash fry any you in seconds if you tried to escape. So you see my long time foes, you really have no choice but to sit and listen while expound upon you and all of humanity's fate!"

Susan felt a slight blush coming on her face. It really was rather pathetic when a supervillian was perfectly aware of the fact that he was about break into a monologue. But there was no reason not to listen while they plotted how to escape from this trap, and whatever he was going to tell them would make it just that easier to foil the plot.

"Ever since our last encounter I have been preparing for this moment, for the supreme instant when I would have my revenge! With the aid of my subterranean subjects I have been constructing huge hydraulic platforms under the largest cities in the world! Now they rest but a single press of a button away from lowering themselves beneath the Earth's surface!

But that is only the first step on the path toward my master plan! You see, after I have accomplished this tremendous feat, your own countrymen will take care of the rest of things on their own quite nicely. When they discover that the cities have vanished they'll assume that there long time enemies are responsible, and then retaliate against them with every weapon in their arsenal!" Johnny leaned in close and whispered a few choice words to his sister.

"Umm... do you think this guy even realized that the Cold War is over?" Susan proceeded to elbow her brother back in irritation.

"Look, as supervillian plans go it's still dangerously likely to cause some real havoc." Of course at the moment they still didn't know how he was going to actually set his plan in motion. They didn't have to wait long however as a moleoid entered the room carrying a pillow that was every bit as plush as the Mole Man's throne, upon which held a wired device which looked just like you'd imagine some kind of detonator from a science fiction movie. As it drew closer foot by foot the Mole Man continued to gloat to his heart's content.

"And to make my triumph complete, the five of you who have sworn to defend humanity will witness my moment of victory, unable to do even the slightest thing to save millions upon millions of your fellow man!" It would have been quite an impressive speech except for the fact that he had a little problem acting upon it, because no sooner did he reach for it than the triggering device proceeded to roll right off of the pillow and land on the floor. The short supervillian rose from his chair, his entire body rippling with rage.

"Accursed clumsy fool! Fine then, I shall make use of the weapon myself!" He proceeded to try and simply bend down to pick up the weapon he needed to press in order to set his evil scheme in motion, except that now it began to roll across the floor away from him.

At this point as he was starting to mutter vaguely muffled curses, and Crystal was breaking into a fit of giggles while Johnny was actually out and out laughing at the Mole Man's misfortune. Of course "misfortune" probably was hardly the right word for it all things considered.

Not that many people were quick to realize that Reed Richards was telekinetic. It simply tended not to come up. Having a nearly indestructible strength enhancing suit of high tech armor that was full of all kinds of futuristic toys would probably be enough for your average superhero (or even another super genius who Susan knew who apparently rivaled Reed for IQ as well as depth of pockets) so his mental superpowers were often went underplayed.

Reed liked it that way since if people didn't bother to shield their minds from him it made it that much easier for him to either read or influence their thoughts. Also he tended to shy away from making blatant use of his telekentic powers whenever there was another option open to him.

At times like this however, when all of humanity seemed to be hanging in the balance there was no reason to hold back abilities in reserve. Still while Reed might be able to make the Mole Man appear to be a complete and utter fool (granted not that it as much of a stretch) on its own, it still didn't get them any closer to properly defeating him. But it turned out that apparently Reed had been working on a plan for that as well.

"Susan I need you to spread out again and Crystal you need to make use of your powers to generate an even greater updraft then the Mole Man's machine already is making. I'll use my suit's jetpack to provide us with additional thrust and we'll float over that radioactive barrier." Susan nodded very slowly. It wasn't exactly the most brilliant plan, but it seemed like it had a pretty dam good chance of working so she'd do her part.

Once more flattening her body down into a sheet Susan was almost at once blown upwards by the draft of air originating from underneath them. She extended her arms and legs, downward so that each of her teammates would have something to hold onto, and awaited the other's response. Reed quickly grabbed hold of her right arm while Johnny seized her left. Crystal took Susan's right leg and proceeded to tie it around her waist so that both of her hands would be free to direct her powers.

Ben didn't even bother simply taking flight instead, though he was careful to fly to the side of Susan rather than above or beneath her, which would have insured he either got slapped by her upwards expanding body (if he went above) or got buffeted by harsh winds (bellows) when Crystal cut lose her powers. Sure enough, the Inhuman's abilities to manipulate air showed themselves yet again a few moments later, and Susan billowed upwards lifting herself several dozen feet above the glowing wall.

Given that they were now about the same distance vertically from the walls as they had achieved horizontally while standing in the middle of them it seemed like they should be high enough up to head forward. Crystal shifted the direction the gusts of wind she was creating were blowing and Susan turned from parachute to parasail as the entire team began to glide forward.

Meanwhile the Mole Man was continuing to try and get his hands on the device which would actually activate his dastardly machines, and continuing to fail. But he was not so focused on the task that he didn't notice how his penned superheroes were escaping. He took his eyes from the floor, raised up his staff and let loose with a blast of energy.

Seeing as at the moment Susan was a great big blue target that was more or less complete incapable of any evasive action. The beam of energy thus struck her almost directly in the "five" symbol she wore between her breasts and Susan felt the stuff flow through her entire body playing havoc with her nervous system.

A normal person probably would have ended up with a great smoking crater in the middle of their upper body, but Ultra Woman was more resilient. In fact in an event that she didn't care to dwell upon at the time, she had once survived being exposed to considerable more than a single blast of energy from the Mole Man's staff.

But while the blast might not have done any permanent damage to her, it did cause Susan to crumple like a damp sand castle. Her body which had previously been perfectly position to catch the gusts of air that Crystal had been reliably creating now curled in upon itself as she began to plummet toward the ground, every fiber of her being filled with hopeless tingling. It was as if the sensation that occurred when you sat in the wrong way restricting blood flow to a leg had been superimposed upon her entire body.

So she fell looking toward the ground hoping that she covered enough ground that she and the others would come down a safe distance away from the radioactive wall. As she continued to plummet she suddenly felt Ben's hands pressing into her body as he flapped around her like a wasp around a falling sparrow.

She wondered if he was trying to somehow straighten out her body, and if she had been able to speak clearly she would have warned him not to bother. However as things turned out all she was able to utter was a mutter along the lines of "mughsdhirth" and even getting that out was enough to leave her jaw feeling doubly numb.

Luckily however Ben had other things in mind. Instead of putting wasted effort into getting her back to the way she used to be, he was working as hard as he possibly could in order to shape Susan's body into a large ball. Thus she more or less bounced off the floor, providing a protective cushion for the other members of the team (though Crystal had apparently leapt clear at the last moment) jerkily crossing a fair bit of the distance between her and the Mole Man's throne before finally coming a stop.

At first Susan just laid there like an oversized tarp with two of teamates trapped inside, but the sheer shock of the Fantastic Five's escape paralyzed the Mole Man long enough for her to mostly recover from his attack.

By the time he'd remembered that he was suppose to be trying to activate his special little doomsday device, Ultra Woman had finished unfolding herself and the entire Fantastic Five was taking part in a headlong rush (well Ben was flying overhead) towards him. Just when it seemed like she'd seen the worst the diminutive supervillian could muster however, Susan's feet came down on one section of his floor and suddenly it gave way beneath her.

With the momentum of running full tilt forward added to that of her pregnant belly Susan had no chance of avoiding going head over heels right into the trap door. In an instant she found herself tumbling down some kind of shaft and cursed herself for having fallen (literally) for one of the oldest tricks in the books twice in one day.

Trap doors were nothing new for her to encounter as a superheroine and given that the Mole Man more or less specialized in tunnels, it was hard to imagine creating tunnels underneath other tunnels would give him much trouble.

Granted the strange shaft she found herself in now was no ordinary tunnel, it was all gleaming metal illuminated by some unseen source and banked downward so steeply and so smoothly that there was nothing Susan could do but more or less roll her way along it until after about twenty seconds of falling the shaft came to abrupt halt and she found herself deposited into a nondescript room.

It was about ten feet wide by fifteen feet across, and hole through which she'd been dropped into it closed almost immediately as a metal ceiling slid into place. Without even bothering to think, she extended her arms upwards to probe the surface of that ceiling and see if there was a gap in it she could slip through.

By the time she'd come to the conclusion that no such gap existed, Susan had also realized that even if she could find such a weakness in the Mole Man's trap it would only take her back into the shaft which had brought her here, and happened to be so carefully designed that even she couldn't possibly scale it.

So for about ten seconds she sat down and simply skulked before standing back up (in the process wishing she hadn't sat down, her belly was really starting to make its presence known these days) and got to work feeling out the walls of her prison to see if they contained any convenient cracks through which she could squeeze her body.

After only having had time to check about a quarter of the painfully dull cell suddenly the Mole Man's voice poured into the room seeming to echo from every single side making it impossible to locate its origin.

"I do hope you enjoy this little trap I set up just for you Ultra Woman. I haven't forgotten how even while ridiculously fat with child you managed to thwart my plan to force all of humanity to become every bit as blind as I am, and so I made sure not to underestimate your abilities. Enjoy your last few breaths!" As his voice cut out Susan could hear a sound akin to the hissing of a thousand snakes as a green gas began to seep into the room.

Susan looked at it, and two powerful emotions instantly went to war for control of her body. The first was puzzlement at how the Mole Man could have been so confident in which member of the Fantastic Five would end up going down which trap door. Perhaps the downward leading tunnels were interconnected some way to make sure the right superhero ended up in the right deathtrap? This "reasonable" solution suggested about two seconds later the second emotion, mirth wore out.

Ultra Woman openly laughed at how little their current adversary thought of her powers to judge by his actions. The Mole Man might claim not to have underestimated her abilities, but the last time she'd been defeated by a room being filled with dangerous gasses of one type or another, not only had she been a considerably less experienced superheroine, but she'd also been off her game due to the unexpected internal antics of the first veritable litter of children.

In fact, she'd have to remember to thank the Mole Man when she got a chance, left to her own devices and with nothing to work with but her body this particular cube might have been able to hold her for quite a while. As it was, Susan promptly curled her body into a large sphere with her face turned inwards so that while she couldn't see anything, she was able to breath the uncontaminated air she'd corralled inside her body, instead of the doubtlessly poisonous fumes which continued to fill her cell.

Then she began to expand that sphere trying to make her body as big as possible, as she did so Susan felt the gas slowly starting to press against her, or at least the gas's pressure was. With a seemingly unending supply of the stuff being forced into the room there was only so much room for either her or it to spread out. As both the superheroine and deadly vapors began to occupy more and more of the room the air pressure became palpable.

Susan didn't bother to try and slide her body over the minuscule vents through which the gas was making its entrance, she simply lay there biding her time confident that she had captured enough breathable air (not to mention had a large enough supply of compressed oxygen in her lungs a trick she'd started using on reflex to prevent herself from being affected by knockout gas attacks) to last her through the poisonous assault.

Sure enough, the pressure continued to mount until it felt like Susan's rubbery body was trapped in some kind of vice that was pressing down on it from all sides, trying to crush her into the smallest sphere imaginable, but Ultra Woman refused to budge and inch knowing that if she allowed herself to get squeezed she'd loose her chance to escape and possibly survive as well.

Since the mounting pressure was unable to make her budge, instead it inflicted its wrath upon the walls which Susan could hear starting to creak ever so softly. Then suddenly with a BANG, it was like a popped balloon only a thousand times louder and considerable lower pitched, then Susan suddenly felt the pressure that she had been under vanish.

Not willing to risk exposing any of her extremities whatever traces of the gas might still remain in the room, Susan instead began to extend probing tendrils from her body, blindly feeling out the new nature of her container. It didn't take her long to notice a significant change, there was now a gapping hole in one of its walls. Deciding as she usually did to take the path of least resistance in such situations, Ultra Woman decided to get her spherical body to roll right through the hole, and it turned out that the opening lead to a downward sloping tunnel.

Willing to risk the possibility of being herded into yet another death trap over breathing in a few chemicals which her lungs would just as soon not become aquatinted with, Susan waited until she had finished rolling downwards to return to her normal form and examine her new surroundings, and what she saw brought a smile to her face.

"Well that's one problem out of the way!"

----

Crystal saw Susan drop into the trap door and realizing that where there was one there might be others (after all, why booby trap only one part of the floor?) and she began to summon up a gust of wind to get her airborne. Sadly she was too late, as suddenly the floor section she was standing on gave way beneath her, breaking her concentration in the process.

Before she knew it, after tumbling downwards through a trap door Crystal wound up in what she found to be a strange scene of domestic bliss instead of any kind of dungeon. Sure enough, as she stood up she found herself surrounded by what looked like a small kitchen, except without any visible doors or windows, and as she looked down Crystal discovered another odd thing about her situation, she was standing in a table, not on it, in it.

The brown piece of furniture only seemed to exist wherever she wasn't, a theory which swiping a hand through it and watching her hand passed right though it confirmed for better or worse. Before she could figure out what to make of this strange "trap" suddenly the voice of her captor echoed through her surroundings.

"Hello my dear, I hope you do enjoy the view, since it will be your last! In thirty seconds a lethal gas will be pumped into that room in quite copious amounts! Unless you manage to find the door to the chamber quite soon you will expire within moments of taking your first whiff of the stuff! You might not have been one of the original four who temporarily spurned my efforts to make the rest of my misbegotten race pay for mistreating me, but you've been a thorn in my side all the same ever since we met. Farewell for the last time!" When his voice finally faded Crystal was left with only one immediate thought, that she hopped he'd waited to finish his monologue before starting that thirty second count down.

Of course such wry dark humor wouldn't help her escape from this place, which as walking out of the table and through a nearby sink proved was apparently composed mostly of some kind of high tech holograms. That meant if she didn't figure a smarter way of searching for the door she'd be reduced to bumbling around blindly looking for it.

Rather than trust to random luck to insure her safety (and that of her four children to be of course) Crystal closed her eyes and called upon her powers. Instantly a powerful wind storm ripple through the room, and the through her connection to the elements the Inhuman Princess felt how each and every single gust made its way through the room, learning what it came in contact with and what it didn't.

Within ten seconds Crystal's eyes flickered open again, and she knew exactly what she needed to do. She ran to the other side of the room, passing right through several pieces of furniture, grabbed the handle of a door that was apparently being made invisible (most likely by some slightly different application of whatever was making her see things that weren't truly there) pulled hard to yank it open, darted through and then slammed it shut behind her just as her ears were filled with the hissing sound of something decidedly unpleasant seeping into the room she'd left in her wake.

---

The floor suddenly gave way beneath Johnny and he let out a cry of shock and surprise. He found himself plummeting through empty air with no idea at all what would break his fall, or possibly break him, and not quite able to resist simply following that old truism about not looking down.

He had no idea what to expect next, though truth turned out to be even stranger than anything he might have expected. It was soft, like a giant water bed. Out of confusion Johnny transformed out of his Mandroid form so that he wouldn't weigh down on the material quite so heavily and thus possibly send himself plummeting downwards through it with one poorly chosen move.

As he stood up, he noticed that there already was a tear in the white covering upon which had landed and through it was streaming a large amount of pinkish material. Easy come, easy go, Johnny returned his flesh to metallic firmness, so that it would be better able to resist any sort of dangerous material. He hesitantly approached the growing puddle of the stuff, and kicked at it, just to see how it reacted.

On the upside it didn't feel like it was some kind of superpowerful acid that was eating through his body, in fact it felt soft and squishy, like you would imagine clouds must feel like as a kid.

"Wow, Mole Man, the quality of your deathtraps has really gone downhill recently!" Sadly as it turned out his captor must have been listening, because at that point the speed with which the pink stuff was pumped upwards increased dramatically. Before he knew it, Johnny was knee deep in the stuff and trying to lift his feet out of it proved that despite being all innocent looking, the stuff was about as easy to move around in as molasses.

"Ughh..." Johnny knew what was happening even as the gunk slowly rose further and further up his body reaching his knees. Jonathan Spencer Storm wasn't anywhere near as smart as his brother in law, but he'd known ever since his sister had effortlessly managed to hand him head shortly after they got their powers, that all his strength was pretty darn useless against an opponent that he couldn't harm by punching it hard enough. This puddle of, whatever was definitely such an opponent and as it rose ever upward. He struggled to think of some way out of his predicament.

"Okay, okay... I'm gonna have to think fast if I don't want to die in what has to be most of the most embarrassing ways possible." So Johnny thought, and thought and thought, and by the time he felt the warm material starting to brush against the tips of his fingers he knew what to do.

Johnny took in the deepest breath that he possibly could, and then proceeded to dive downwards into the hole that the muck was seeping out of. The stuff had to be getting pumped into the room somehow, so all he had to do was figure it out before he drowned. That wasn't exactly the most reassuring of plans but for something he'd come up with all on his own it wasn't half bad.

Even more importantly, as he slowly worked his way through the muck, he finally managed to wrap his hands around a firm metal tube. Johnny yanked at it with all his strength (at least all the strength he could muster while he was completely buried in a material that he'd rather not think about the composition of) and he felt the thing first creek, then buckle, then finally a snap.

Of course behind the tube was a tunnel full of the stuff, but by this point it wasn't completely full and so the room began to drain into this new tunnel, taking Johnny along with it. After floundering in the muck for a while he was finally able to work his way free from the stuff. Thus he found himself crawling through a tunnel panting heavily and trying to scrape bits and pieces of the material he'd been dunked it off of his body.

"Double uggh, I really didn't need this."

----

"Susan!" Reed Richards let loose with a cry of pure, utter, and complete anguish as he watched the floor drop out beneath his pregnant wife and she vanished from his sight. For a moment he was hopelessly terrorized by imagines of the trapdoor she had just vanished down leading to some kind of bottomless pit from which he'd never see her again.

It passed however as Reed reminded himself that if here was one thing he had noticed in all his years as a superhero, it was that supervillians never made the most of the fact that they were allowed to kill off their opponents.

It might have been just a little egotistical of him, but Reed Richards was quite certain that if he'd put his mind to it, he would have easily conquered the world by now and been serenely worrying about what to name after himself next rather than his wife's safety.

As it was, Reed had managed to regain his composure and assure himself that Susan was doubtlessly only headed into another "deathtrap" just like one of the thousands she had already escaped from. By the time Reed was done considering his situation it was unfortunately too late to avoid the trap door that had opened up beneath him.

A long fall into apparent nothingness ended as he feel into a room that seemed like giant freezer or meat locker that had walls made entirely out of (or at least in the shape of) ice cube trays. Reed stared at the things, for a few moments trying to figure out what purpose they served. Then he got his answer and wished he hadn't as a white mist spread out of ice boxes coating his armor.

"How do you like it, Mr. Fantastic? A little bit of liquid nitrogen and all our fancy armor becomes nothing but one big paper weight!" Reed inwardly side as he struggled to move and indeed discovered that his armor was more or less frozen completely solid. That said, his armor happened to be very much air tight with a self contained environment inside of it.

Thus while his armor's joints were frozen solid, Reed Richards himself was perfectly comfortable, which meant that he could still think (and concentrate) without distraction. The Mole Man's problem was that he was still under estimating Reed's powers, but was probably just an inevitable side effect of the fact that the first time the team had fought him Reed had been nothing but a brain in a jar whose only purpose had been to be nothing but a living communications network for the other three.

So the fact that he had gone from a glorified cell phone to arguably the most powerful member of the team was bound to have taken plenty of people by surprise. He hesitantly directed his psychic powers outside his armor so as to break the ice that encased it. But apparently no sooner so had he done just that than another blast of the freezing material came out keeping him stuck in place.

Of course, it would take a lot more than that to sink Reed's spirits. He had tried one approach and it had failed, that just meant it was time for another. This time rather than trying to free his body he snapped off one particular chunk of the frost that was more or less in the shape of an ice pick. He then turned it around, and hurled it straight back at the miniature holes that the icy material came out of.

Then he pulled it back out and proceeded to jab it into a few more sections of the wall before it had completely shattered to a point that it was worthless. With mounting feelings (and proof) of success Reed proceeded to break off another sheet of ice, and once more vent his wrath upon the, vents that lined the wall before him. After using about five different slabs of ice Reed once more tried to move about and though a few more sprays of ice came out, they weren't enough of them to properly coat his armor to the point that it immobilized his armor.

Thus he was able to bring his metal fist to bear on the wall, which of course given the strength his armor lent him meant that the entire thing had developed a man sized hole large enough for him to slip through five punches later. On the other side of the wall he found something that looked like a large collection of cold war era computers. "Hmmm...."

-----

"What a revoltin' development..." muttered Benjamin Grimm as he watched as all four of his teamates vanished down various different trap doors. But rather than waste time feeling sorry for himself (poor him he wouldn't be able to experience yet another death trap), he got to work.

Ben tilted his wings downward and made towards the device which the Mole Man needed to complete his plans. He snatched it up off the floor before rising upwards towards the ceiling grasping the device close to his chest. The Mole Man glowered up at him and raised his staff in Ben's direction.

"You flying fool! Even as we speak each and every one of your teammates are being destroyed by finest traps and tricks that I was capable of conceiving!" Then he fired up a blast of energy that Ben managed to avoid by doing a quick midair barrel roll.

"If you think that you'll be able to talk Dragonfly into giving up that easily, then you don't know Dragonfly!" Of course, while the Mole Man wouldn't exactly have any considerable chance of being able to blast Ben out of the "sky" (and obvious his horde of extremely ground bound minions wouldn't do him much good) the lone superhero was also keenly aware that trying to take them all on by himself had "bad idea" written all over it.

So for the moment he just kept flying circles around the Mole Man dodging blast after blaster of energy. However as time passed he discovered new obstacles that he'd have to contend with previously, as sections of the ceiling started to give way in the wake of the Mole Man's attacks.

After darting out of the way of one such delayed cave in he turned to find the Mole Man angrily slamming his staff against the floor rather than trying to line up another shot.

"You cursed fool. Give me the device and you will at least live to see my glorious conquest of the surface world!" Ben was about to shoot back at least a mildly witty response when suddenly a section of the room's walls decided to give up the ghost as well.

Why became readily apparent as a moment later Jonathan Storm clambered in through the entrance he had just created. This sight further infuriated the Mole Man to an almost comical degree.

"How did you survive my death trap?" Johnny proceeded to stand up and playfully stroke his chin.

"It's a long story, though that's not as hard a question to answer as how exactly I managed to find my way back here. But I figure I'll leave I'll leave problems that require long drawn out discourse to resolve up to Reed Richards. Instead I'm going to set my sights a little lower and try to answer something a bit more topical; who wants to get their face pounded in first?" The Mole Man pointed his staff quite firmly at this new arrival.

"Get him!" A moment later sure enough a flood of small yellow bodies was headed in the Mandroid's direction. Luckily he was able to punch, pummel, and punt his way through all of them without too much trouble. Taking the time to trod upon one fallen foe he advanced towards the Mole Man himself.

"Looks like now that all of your little friends are out of the way it's your turn. Ben, old buddy, would you like to do the honors?" Ben nodded as he tossed aside the supervillain's precious device figuring that the fall would probably break it or at least keep it away from him.

"All right then, it's clobbering time!" He dive bombed downward towards the Mole Man while Johnny charged forward careful to avoid the section of the floor that he knew to be more or less littered with trapdoors. However they approached more or less in tandem all of a sudden the lights went out.

"Fools! Did you think I wouldn't have kept at least one trick up my sleeve just in case?" Johnny groped blindly from the Mole Man while Ben took his turn to mock the supervillian.

"You know if you'd turned the lights out in here while it was just me then you might have actually been able to get that doohickie you want so much away from me!" In response however there was the sound of the Mole Man's staff discharging and then Ben let loose with a cry of pain. A moment later the sound of a swinging staff whistled gently through the room and Johnny gave loose with a cry of surprise that soon became a scream of fright as he found himself once again in free fall while the Mole Man's mocking voice called down to both of them.

"Enjoy your trip downwards, and trust me there will be no fancy escape this time, just a very long drop with a short, sudden stop!" Johnny grouped blindly in the darkness but couldn't even find a wall to grab hold of to try and slow himself down.

"Ben, old buddy, can you fly right about now? I figure if I went back to being flesh and blood you might be able to slow us down some, then when we get near the bottom you let go and I'll go back to being the Mandroid..." Johnny considered this a good attempt at making the best of a bad situation, sadly the only response he got back was a rather agonized mumble.

"Oh well in that case I guess we're just boned. Right now all I can think is that I really shouldn't have procrastinated figuring out what my last words would be...." A moment later the two landed and bounced. Still unable to see his hands in front of his face Johnny slowly groped around at what they had landed on.

"You know for a death pit, this is surprisingly soft..." A moment later however he felt something very firm start to wrap its way around his arms and legs, pulling him down against the material tightly.

"OH GOD! IT'S GOT ME!" A moment later however a feminine laugh filled the room. "Sorry little brother, I couldn't resist." The binds holding Johnny in vanished as quickly as they had come into being, and he slammed his hands against the rippling material in anger.

"Sis, you have a sick sense of humor!" Susan's voice was completely unperturbed however.

"Well, I learned it from spending it time with you. Now then, would you like a bounce back into action. A moment later however a very loud "THUMP" suggested that yet another being had just landed on top of Susan's body.

"Actually that won't be necessary Susan I think it's time that we find Crystal and get out of here." A strange smell began to drift up and as Susan shifted her body aside a single light filled the chamber. Crystal was using one hand to control a strong enough wind current to keep herself airborne, and in her other hand was a flickering flame.

"I'm right here, Reed. But we still don't know how to get out of here..." Susan coughed loudly, her voice growing even more smug than it had been after first catching two of her teammates.

"Actually I found where the Mole Man is keeping the Pogo Plane on my way over here. It'll be a little tricky for those of you who can't fit your entire body inside a milk bottle to follow me to it, but you should be able to enlarge the passages fairly quickly. But what about the Mole Man's evil plan?" Reed Richards spoke up with the kind of voice that brooked no disagreement.

"It's been taken care of. Don't worry."

----

As the Pogo Plane's engines fired and it lifted off toward the hole that Crystal had made for it to travel through to the world above, Reed Richards was looking at his arm. Of course, there was no watch upon it. He had a chronometer built right into his suit, but even a man such as he could find himself performing old routines even when they weren't necessary.

"Well by my calculations we've got about thirty seconds left give or take until the Mole Man manages to activate his creation." As he spoke he proceeded to press a few more buttons to take care of guiding the ship back home. Johnny was considerably less blasé about the situation.

"Meaning we've got less than a minute until he manages to destroy several of the world's largest cities? Isn't that what we in the superhero business consider a 'bad thing' last time I checked?" Reed smiled as he calmly began to remove his armor starting with his mask.

"Yes, that would be a bad thing if it actually took place. However, after I managed to escape from the death trap that the Mole Man dropped me into I managed to locate the equipment that was responsible for controlling his device. So I did a little creative rewiring. To make a long story short, when he pushes that button this entire island is going to be 'vertically' relocated to put it politely. Suffice to say its highest point is going to be about a couple dozen feet below sea level." Johnny looked down at the floor quite thoroughly chastised.

"Well lesson learned, yet another reason for me to add to that very long list about why I should never piss off my brother in law. Well as long as we get to go home, and nobody innocent gets hurt, I'll call that a win. Wake me when we land Crys, I'm gonna see if I can grab some shut eye..."

----

The flight back to the Baxter Building was completely uneventful and later on that night, Susan and Reed's bodies lay intertwined with one another as they shared their thoughts on the day.

"You know while it's not like we weren't expecting it, it still is a shame that we weren't able to get our kids that private island they wanted." Reed nodded very slowly, his body slowly rubbing up against his wife's.

"Well, if it's that important to you, Susan, I suppose I could speak to Tony Stark. Last time I checked he has a few private islands that he isn't quite sure what to do with and would probably be willing to part with them for a fairly reasonable price." Susan carefully matched each and every movement of her husband's body with its like, shifting herself in turn.

"Well, it wasn't so much about the island, as giving our kids a place for them to test out their powers in some unique ways when we weren't around..." Reed felt a particular itch on his chin and given how tightly bound his arms were he needed to make use of his powers in order to scratch it.

"Well, I'll make sure to sleep on it dear." Susan bristled slightly tightening her grip in an irritated rather than playful manner.

"You mean that we'll sleep on it together given that when it comes to this kind of outside the box problem I'm just as likely to come up with a solution as you are... Wait a minute, the two of us sleeping on something.... I do believe that I just might have a solution..." A peach colored tendril proceeded to extend from Susan's body reaching across the room over to Reed's desk in order to pick up a pencil and scratch a few notes on a piece of paper before opening up a drawer and dropping it into the compartment and shutting it.

"There, now I'll be able to look it up in the morning in case I forget it, and baring any mind reading I'll get to enjoy the sensation of knowing something you don't for a while!"

-----

"Wow, would you look at all of this stuff...." mumbled Samantha as she looked around the room extending her neck towards this, that, and a few other things in order to get a better look at it. Meanwhile Rachel was poking something not at all innocent looking which happened to have multiple spikes sticking out of it.

"So, um, what exactly is all this stuff?" Susan offered her children a broad smile before she gave them an explanation.

"Simple, whenever your father or I come across an evil villain's deathtrap that gets used on me, we take mental notes. Then he sees about recreating it so that if the villains aren't creative enough to have come up with something new next time we run into them, I'll be so experienced with the particular mechanism that I'll be able to escape it in no time.

But since I'm confident of my skills concerning everything here, we're turning it over to you six. Of course, you do need to pay attention to us while we explain how it all works, but once we've done that you'll be able to test each other's elastic powers in several different ways whenever you want!"

----

After doing quite a bit of explanation and hanging around just to make sure that they'd gotten the hang of it, Susan and Reed lived up to the promise by leaving their kids alone, exiting from their new testing room with Susan's right arm wrapped twice over around her husband.

"Are we bad parents for doing that?" Reed just shrugged slightly leaning in close against his wife's body.

"Not really Susan, after all our kids are happy and there's no reason for them to expect the real reason we had such equipment in the first place." Susan let loose with a contented sigh, a wistful smile on her face.

"Of course now that it's theirs and we've moved it out of your lab, we're going to have to do without." Reed glanced into her eyes, a wide smile on his face.

"That's one point of view. Another would be that this is a chance for me to start developing all sorts of new toys for the two of us." It was at this point that Susan kissed him. "I knew there was a reason I haven't stopped loving you one little bit since the day we got married..."


	5. Chapter 5

AN: AFTER A LONG, LONG, LONG, LONG, TIME... here it is folks the next chapter of Second Stretches, enjoy!

Second Stretches Chapter five: Unwrapping, in which Susan Richards receives some unusual presents and Reed Richards opens up a few things of his own.

"Jeez, Mom, we're supposed to be the ones who wake you up early on Christmas morning!" Samantha noted. Benjamin nodded in time with his sister's words.

"Yeah! Now that dad has called off lessons for the traditional winter break I thought we could go back to sleeping in again!" He complained.

Susan tried hard to keep a smile from her lips. The parallels between her children's current reaction and her earlier one to Crystal were hard to ignore however.

"Don't worry kids. What you're about to see will make this all worthwhile." There were more groans, moans, and mumbles, but Susan's children kept marching forward till they reached the hanger.

"Okay kids, here you go. Aunt Crystal's gift to all of you." She declared.

A moment later the doors slid open, and all the air was filled with the sound of half a dozen cries of astonishment.

"Is that...?" Before Franklin could even finish his question Valeria extended an arm and began to tug at the hem of Crystal's outfit.

"Did you really make all of this for us?" The six year old asked. Crystal smiled down at the blond haired girl while she began to rub her belly. Susan pondered that the Inhuman princess was probably thinking about what it would be like to have her own daughter to converse with or daughters, as the case may be.

"It wasn't that hard, believe it or not. Just a matter of mixing the right amounts of water and air at the right temperatures. In the end the building's air conditioning system did almost as much work I did!" She admitted.

Very slowly the six children walked forward into a new world.

The sound of the soft material crunching beneath their feet was music to Susan's ears. Likewise was their voices pooling together into a single shared "Wowww..." of excitement.

Carefully Rachel bent down and began to scoop up a handful of the white material.

"So this... is snow?" She asked, her voice quivering with delight.

Susan silently nodded in assent.

It was at moments like this that she couldn't help but think about the price her children paid for everything they had.

Yes, they were going to become rich beyond their wildest dreams as soon as they graduated from whatever college they chose to attend, and they had not one but two different superpowers, but it didn't come without a price.

There was some painful truth to Jane's comments about how she and the others had been living in one place all their lives. To avoid making them easy targets for supervillains they were kept within The Baxter Building's walls almost round the clock. That meant the simple joys of playing in the snow had been denied them... Until now at least.

Finally given a chance however, they took to the stuff like ducks to water.

In fact, even before Rachel could finish her little examination a tightly packed sphere slammed into her head. It shattered into a cloud of white specks leaving Rachel blinking in surprise.

"Hey, it didn't bounce off..." Rachel pondered in amazement.

Her assailant, Jane Richards, on the other hand was busy transforming yet another innocent pile of snow into weapons of mass humiliation.

"Yeah I know... and I like it..." Jane cackled. Nor was she the only who found pleasure in the recent turn of events.

"Good, good, good! It looks like I got the consistency just right. Firm enough to be packed soft enough to shatter against an elastic target!" Crystal gloated triumphantly. She then departed to gather the rest of the Baxter Building.

As the other woman departed through the hanger doors Susan felt her stomach jiggle slightly.

It couldn't be a kick however; it felt like it had started outside her body and travelled inwards rather than the other way around. She carefully stretched out her neck, past the rim of her belly, noting the flecks of white which dotted it.

Clearly the sensation she'd experienced had been caused by the children who were outside her belly rather than the ones in it.

"That was for getting us up so early, Mom!" Benjamin shouted proudly.

Her black haired son held up yet another snowball. His right arm whipped backwards then snapped forward. Once more Susan felt a cold tingle race across her belly.

"Last time I checked, Benjamin Richards, my womb didn't have a target symbol drawn on it." Susan scolded her black haired son. Jane suddenly fixed a mischievous smile upon her mother's outfit.

"Maybe so, but if you ask me that '5' looks like a pretty good one!" She commented. Jane proceeded to prove her point by launching a snowball that landed right in the middle of the Fantastic Five emblem on Susan's costume.

"So that's how it's gonna be ..." Ultra Woman pondered. Her own arms began to grow longer and flatter. A curve was added to them as well, transforming Susan's arms into Jai-alai sticks.

She started to run across the snow as fast as she could, her arms scooping up large handfuls of white fluff.

It didn't take long for Crystal to return with the others. After that the entire hanger quickly devolved into one gigantic snowball fight, with small side events going on here and there.

Even in something as simple as playing Susan's children still gave the activity their own special twist however.

For example, while six year olds would be perfectly happy to build a snowman. Franklin and Rachel had decided instead to work together on a snow Ultra Woman.

Franklin contributed his artistic detail, Rachel her scientific attention to detail and together they achieved –

"THWUMP!"

That was the sound of a significant portion of the little sculpture that they were working on falling to the snow covered floor.

"Blast it all ..." Rachel moaned, kicking at the pile of powder in question that previously had been their "snow mother's" belly. Franklin once more began to get to scoop up the snow in bitterly.

"Well what do you want to do about it, Rache? Tell mom that she's structurally unsound?" He asked his sister. Rachel shrugged helplessly and joined her brother gathering snow.

If you ignored their inability to properly create a likeness of Susan's pregnant stomach out of snow the rest of it was actually a fairly good likeness.

Just as the pair was starting up their fifth attempt their godfather decided to drop in.

Ben Grimm even went so far as to "carpet bomb" them, dropping a handful of already rolled snowballs. Not only where Rachel and Benjamin hit, but "Snow Susan" wasn't spared either. The two creators were only coated with frosty dust, their creation was utterly destroyed.

In the wake of his attack the two children dropped the lumps of snow that they had been working on and shook their fists upwards in anger.

"Hey, come back here!" Rachel shouted in anger. Ben spun back around and waved happily at them.

"Take your best shot, kids!" Dragonfly taunted them.

The two wasted no time and begun arming themselves with armfuls of snow.

Meanwhile Ben began to skim across the floor gathering up his own ammunition. Rachel and Franklin chose that moment to launch a counter offensive, but Dragonfly was ready for them.

Ben barrel rolled out of the way then replied with a few more shots of his own. His attackers were thus forced to concentrate on bending their bodies out of harm's way. Rather throw snowballs at him, they chose instead to send imploring gazes at Susan.

"Mom, Uncle Ben is being mean to us!" The pair whined in equally high pitched voices. Unable to resist their heart melting gazes, Susan combined her hands into one gigantic scoop with which to gather snow.

"Kids, kids, kids, you're never going to hit Dragonfly like that. You might as well be trying to slap a fly. If you want to hit a fast moving target like that you're going to need to use something a bit a bit more wide spread. Behold the Susan Storm Snow Cannon!"

Susan didn't even bother turning the snow into a sphere. Instead she just raised it above her head and let gravity stretch out her limbs as it dragged the snow downwards.

Then with but a single contraction of her rubbery muscles, the load of snow was catapulted up into the air. It instantly began to spread outwards forming a white cloud that practically buried Ben in midair.

"This is Dragonfly One. I'm going down!" Ben cried out in shock, before going into a tail spin. It terminated as he ploughed into the miss-able soft landing space created by the layer of snow spread across the hanger bay's floor.

He lay there in defeat, flapping his wings but otherwise motionless. The two youngsters instantly sent their arms stretching in Susan's direction.

"Way to go, Mom!" Franklin praised.

"Yeah, you really nailed him!" Rachel cheered.

Susan accepted this approval with the silent dignity of a properly stoic superheroine.

After taking time to congratulate their mother they turned their gazes upon their fallen foe.

"You know Franky, I've got a great idea concerning how we could deliver a little of frosty payback of our own! Curl up into a sphere about the size of a basket ball for me, would you?" She asked.

Franklin shot a skeptical look at her, but by now he'd had several years to get used to his black haired sister's semi crazy ideas.

So he did like she asked, and a moment later Rachel bent down and began to slowly roll Franklin through the snow.

"Hey, what's …? What are you..." Franklin would have said more, but getting a mouthful of snow cut him off.

"Look, just keep your yap closed for now. It'll all make sense in about thirty seconds." Samantha ordered.

Then she went back to rolling her brother across the floor until there was no trace of blue left to be seen over his body. After that she wrapped both arms around her creation and lifted it up over her head.

"All right then, ladies and gentlemen, presenting the Rachel Richards homing snowball! Go sic 'em, brother of mine!" She yelled while heaving the supersized snowball like a shot-put.

Unsurprisingly it didn't make it all the way their prone target. But when it landed, the snowball bounced right back up into the air.

Two more bounces later, it slammed down on top of Ben's body. This hard impact caused it to finally shed its outer layer of frost revealing the perfectly fine Franklin Richards within.

He stood proudly over Ben's body, giving his sister a quick thumbs up, too.

Jonathan Storm let loose with a quick chuckle as he observed his nephew and niece at play.

"Not bad at all. Just don't try anything like that against me." He advised.

"Why not?" Jane Richards wondered, idly holding a snowball in her right hand.

"Why do you think? Remember my wife created all of this in the first place. One wave of her hands and you'll be nothing but a snow sculpture!" Johnny predicted ominously.

Crystal proceeded to prove him dead right. She waved her hands and created a unique ice sculpture with the metallic Mandroid at its center.

"Case in point ..." He muttered in between shivers.

Crystal's present alone turned to be capable of holding onto her children's attention for the entire morning. After lunch, however, they turned their minds towards more conventional gifts.

Of all the presents exchange the one that Susan was giving to her brother and her sister in law was the most important to her. Crystal was the one who ended up opening it, though Johnny leaned in to take a look as soon as the wrapping paper was off.

"Jeez sis, I don't think there really needs to be another one of these in the Baxter Building, there's got to be one on just about every bookshelf already!" It was a copy of "Saving The World In Time To Make Dinner" by Susan Richards.

Of course the fact that Susan had all of one book to her name didn't amount to much, at least not compared to how many different books, research papers, and patents her husband had written.

The book itself was a result of Susan compiling her various experiences as both a pregnant superheroine and mother of six. It'd come out about two years ago and had proceeded to sell almost embarrassingly well providing Susan with a small fortune of her own, not that she needed it.

As she stroked the back of the volume in her brother's hands Susan shot him an almost painfully smug look.

"Fair enough, but Johnny this is your very own copy to read." She explained. Johnny looked at the book slowly and turned it over.

"Oh come on, Sis. Do you think that I wouldn't have read the bestselling book that you wrote by now?" He asked in exasperation.

A playfully twinkle shown in Susan's eyes.

"Oh really? So you didn't mind that in the dedications I mention how grateful I was to my brother, because after a life with him, dealing with him six super powered children was a breeze?" She responded.

Sure enough, he took the bait and flipped open the book and studied the first few pages

intently.

"It does not say that!" He protested.

Johnny was right of course, Susan had mentioned that he'd always been there for her when she'd needed him most, and kept her less complimentary comments to herself.

"You're correct, but then if you'd bothered to read the thing beforehand you wouldn't have needed to check now, would you?" She suggested.

Needless to say Johnny directed his irritated glare towards the picture of his sister on the cover of the book rather than the genuine article.

"That was a cheap shot." He complained.

Jane proving herself to be in a playful mood at this point joined the conversation.

"Hey, Uncle Johnny, didn't you used to say that calling something a cheap shot after the fact is just another way of saying that it worked?" She inquired.

His flesh turned to metal as he stood up and began to walk towards his favorite niece.

"You know it sounds to me like somebody is asking to get bounced around a bit!" He said.

Jane proceeded to stick out her tongue, which she lengthened until it was long enough to drag across the floor, allowing her to blow an extra long raspberry.

"Gonna have to catch me first!" She stated. Then giggling with joy Jane ran from the room while Johnny chased after her, both of them clearly enjoying themselves immensely.

After all of the gifts had been handed out Ben and Crystal agreed to take the kids out for a trip around the city. Meanwhile Susan was grateful for a chance to just relax after an extremely high energy day.

However before she knew it, her afternoon nap was interrupted by a pair of gloved fingers rapping on the wall of her room. She looked up, preparing to let loose with an irritated sarcastic jibe towards her brother for getting in the way of her beauty sleep.

However to her immense surprise, it was actually her husband who was standing there in the doorway.

"Sorry to wake you up, Susan, but I was wondering if you could come with me to the lab." He apologized.

Susan looked at him cautiously as she slid off of the bed and began to waddle towards him. To her surprise she found that Johnny was waiting outside her door as well.

"Okay, what's going on...?" She asked, her mindset shifting from drowsy mother to be into suspicious superheroine as her pace increased slightly.

Reed asking her to join him was nothing too dramatic, he might just want to run a few more test on how her children were developing, but bringing her brother along...

"It's nothing Susan. At least I hope it's nothing. I just returned to my lab after we were done celebrating, and well, perhaps it's just my mind playing tricks on me, but I think that some things aren't quite the way I left them.

That should be impossible, and for all I know it's nothing but a sign that I'm getting to be middle aged, but it never hurts to be sure. So if you two would come with me?" He asked.

Susan nodded as did her brother and the three of them struck out towards Reed's lab, which he opened with a single voice command.

"If you two will follow me I'll show you what I'm talking about. There are a few things just "off" about the room where I was working on that dimensional portal I was kicking around in my head ever since I thought we'd need something like it to rescue the Inhumans." Reed explained.

Susan and Johnny exchanged slightly pained looks. Neither of them wanted to suggest that one of the most brilliant men in the world was starting to lose his marbles, but all the same Reed appeared unusually high strung about something which should by all rights been impossible.

Not just the possibility that someone might have gotten inside the Baxter Building, but then Reed Richards' lab as well! Granted the Fantastic Five had run into villains who were powerful enough to have breached Reed's security, but they in turn weren't the type to try and hide their presence from the team.

As the trio entered into a fairly narrow corridor, all of a sudden it happened.

One moment they were just walking along when suddenly the room began to fill up with countless particles of sand. It wasn't even just as if the corridor was having a sudden strange sandstorm, it was as if the contents of an entire desert was suddenly being dumped into the room with them.

Before Susan knew it, they were all up to their ankles in the stuff.

Out of a grotesque curiosity Ultra Woman couldn't help but try to figure out exactly what she was still capable of at the moment.

She struggled to try and twist her way free from the stuff, but it was too tightly packed for her to be able to squeeze her body through it. That by itself was alarming, but even more so when combined with the fact that she was up to her belly by the time that she'd realized it.

"I was right. We're clearly under some kind of attack!" Reed exclaimed.

Johnny, however, wasn't anywhere near as concerned as Reed was at the moment.

"Big deal. It's gonna take a lot more than dumping a gigantic pile of sand to get rid of us!" He responded.

Reed spoke with a strange sort of serenity that Susan couldn't understand how he managed to summon in the slightest.

"Actually Johnny, if my estimations are correct, we've only got about thirty seconds left until all three of us are completely buried in sand..." He concluded.

The stuff was up to Susan's breasts now and for what it was worth she lifted her hands up so that it'd take longer (though not that much longer) for them to become buried in sand while Johnny and Reed continued their conversation.

"Okay then do you have a plan for how we can avoid all suffocating in the near future? Please tell me that you do!" Susan practically begged.

Luckily as was the complete and utter norm Reed Richards was never without a plan.

"The walls around my lab are made of materials that are all but unbreakable but those on the inside are considerably weaker. Johnny punch through the closest wall to you, now!" Reed instructed.

The Mandroid swung with all his might and bashed a hole into the corridor's wall. At once the sand began to drain out of the room taking the superheroes with it.

The sand was now only up to their knees, and apparently the force that had created it wasn't about to try and flood the much larger room they now occupied.

With it no longer packed together so tightly Susan managed to kick her legs free and stood up.

"Well I'm glad that particular ordeal is over and done with, but I don't suppose my brilliant husband is going to come up with an explanation for how it happened any time soon...?" Ultra Woman pondered.

Reed slowly shook his head as he looked around his lab cautiously.

"No, but I have theories. For example..." Reed began, but before he could elaborate, the sand suddenly came alive again.

It surged backwards like a miniature dust devil knocking all three of them to the floor, leaving them momentarily blinded.

Ultra Woman had thought far enough in advance to stretch out a thin layer of protective skin over her eyes before the sand struck her. It was an old trick she had learned to let her see underwater but also worked in several other eye straining conditions. So she was the first to catch sight of what appeared in the wake of the sand storm.

There was a strange green costume floating in midair that the tendrils of sand were flowing into. Slowly they formed themselves into the shape of a brown haired human male.

"The Sandman!" Ultra Woman shouted in surprise.

No one in the room needed a second glance to recognize the well known supervillian who had many times taken part in various versions of the "Frightful Four/Five" in attempts to create an evil FF which would be able to overpower the good one.

Previously he had never worn a costume as a supervillian. Even more interestingly he'd never before tried to attack the team by himself.

It wasn't that his power was anything to sneeze at. He could transform his entire body into sand firstly allowing him to laugh of many traditional means of attacking someone.

Secondly it let him disperse his body far and wide to either blind or suffocate his foes (as he had almost managed to do to all three of them a few moments ago) in short order. Finally he could solidify his body, generating sand weaponry which was hard as concrete was quite impressive.

But, when you mixed Sandman and water (and Crystal could summon endless amounts of H2O before projecting with firehose like force) you ended up with a helpless mud puddle.

"That's right, nice to see that you haven't forgotten about me!" He responded.

Reed's eyes slowly began to dart around the room pondering if he had the time in order to make a run for his armor.

"But I thought the Wizard and the others were still in jail..." Reed asked, surreptitiously edging towards his desk.

Sandman nodded let loose with his traditional gruff laugh as he constantly transformed his fingers from flesh to sand and back again.

"They are, so I decided that I'd just take a break from working with that bunch of losers! Though that said, I decided to take some of Wizard's advice before I broke free and got him to help me design a costume to enhance my powers!

Of course it does plenty more than to just look snazzy after I made a few more additions to it thanks to the stuff you had lying around here..." The supervillian answered.

Still playing for time another question sprang from Reed's lips.

"How exactly were you able to break into the Baxter Building on the first place?" Mr. Fantastic pleaded in befuddlement.

Suddenly the Sandman raised his hands and a gigantic wave, of flowing sand washed over Reed's body, knocking him the floor and leaving him half buried in the stuff.

"Yeah, I bet that puzzle is tearing you apart Big Brain, in fact I'm tempted to just leave you wondering until you go crazy over it. But on the other hand, who am I to deny a soon to be dying man's last request?

You're security scanners are mighty impressive. Supposedly able to pick out any of the supervillians you've fought and captured at some point, just by scanning the DNA of anyone who enters the place.

But your scanners are based around looking for carbon based lifeforms, and a few others types just to make sure that skrulls don't take you by surprise either...

So what happens if a silicone based supervillian sneaks in? Nothing, that's what!

It was easy for me to just 'blow right in' without raising the least bit of suspicion. Now I couldn't just break into your lab, it's too heavily protected for that, but what I could do was wait till you left it to go play with your kids, and the few seconds you left the door open was all I needed!

So now it's time for the Sandman to put the three of you to sleep, permanently!" He boasted.

Johnny who was still in his metallic Mandroid form had just taken all the bantering he could handle.

"Let's just see about that!" He replied.

No sooner had he begun his dramatic charge however than Sandman raised his arm which suddenly began a gigantic hammer made of sand.

"Looks like it's been too long since our last tussle kid, but maybe this will pound some sense even into you head!" Sure enough, Sandman's blow left Johnny laying stunned on the floor and momentarily stunned as a result of the blow.

"Well that's two down one to go, it's gonna be your turn next, Ultra Woman. Though with a belly like that maybe you should change your name to Ultra Sized Woman... I thought you were big a few years ago but now you're even puffier!" Sandman mocked.

Susan protectively wrapped both of her arms around her stomach she took one unflinching step forward.

"It so happens that I'm only five months pregnant. So in another few months I'll be puffier yet and still able to protect my children and the world from supervillians like you!" She promised.

The Sandman shook his head firmly.

"I doubt it, cause I'm about to make sure that you never get a chance to grow any bigger!

The wonderful thing about being a supervillian is that you don't have to worry about fighting dirty..." He admitted.

He calmly held his right hand and a moment later it turned into a powerful blast of sand headed straight for Susan.

"For example, let's find out just how well you fight with sand in your eyes!" He cackled.

The blast was much more measured and centered than the one that had struck Reed, and so even though Susan stood her ground, it forced hands to go from cradling her belly to covering her face in pain.

Sandman began advanced towards her slowly and purposely. Except that just as he drew close enough to touch Susan, her hands moved away from face revealing a pair of very angry, but clear, blue eyes.

"Pretty well given that I can create a thin layer of see-through fabric over my eyes. It's a trick that I learned several years ago for going underwater.. As for a belly full of babies..." Ultra Woman continued.

Susan's stomach began to grow bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger at an extremely rapid pace, slamming the Sandman up against a far wall of her husband's lab.

"Sandman, meet my kids; kids, meet the Sandman. He's the supervillian you'll be helping mommy take to jail today!" Ultra Woman intoned in a sickeningly sweet voice, as she shifted about slightly so as to make sure that her opponent didn't get a chance to escape.

Except that the supervillian transformed his body into a gigantic ,flowing pile of sand before she could secure her grip and thus was able to swirl around the room at his leisure.

Susan instantly turned about (to be exact, Susan elongated her middle section, then pivoted her body spin it about like a gigantic yoyo) heading in her husband's direction.

Her hands altered themselves into thin flat trowels with which she could more easily work her way through the pile of sand that her husband was buried beneath.

"Reed, are you all right?" She asked.

Mr. Fantastic emerged half spluttering from the pile as with his wife's help he managed to work his way free.

"I'm fine, my dear. A little humiliated, but my ego suffered a worse bruising than any part of my body. That said, I sincerely wish that I had my armor right now.

I'm sorry if I caused you any concern, but after I found I wasn't suffocating, I decided that it would be a more prudent use of my powers to try and contact the others rather than working my way out." Reed comforted Susan.

A moment later however a large hand, made of sand, suddenly materialized and reached out, lifting Ultra Woman up into the air.

"Real cute, rubber girl, but now I'm going to squeeze and twist you until you look like something that you'd find in a carnival!" Sandman threatened.

Susan began to shift about, and as she did so, the gigantic sand hand shifted right along with her.

"You're pretty hard girl to keep track of, but let's see if this helps..." As he spoke Sandman's hand suddenly transformed itself into a spinning cyclone with Susan in the eye of it.

She tried to stretch her way out of the cyclone, but the whirlwind of sand grabbed her up, spun her around, and slammed her body around, reducing it to a pulpy blue mush.

"Heh, looks like I've got your wife in the palm of my hand!" He gloated.

Sure enough the cyclone was emerging straight out of the Sandman's right hand, while he used his left to inflict more hammer hard blows upon the Johnny so that he couldn't regain his footing.

"Let her go.." Mr. Fantastic practically whispered.

Sandman turned and saw Reed approaching him.

"What are you gonna do about it? Without your fancy tin can you're nothing!" He said, unmoved by Reed's warning.

Reed calmly tapped a hand against his forehead.

"No, without this I'm nothing. My armor is nothing but a way for me to better project the power of my mind. However given the situation, I'm sadly going to have to simply work without a catalyst. Now then. Let. Go. Of my. Wife!" Reed growled the last sentence, his normal calm demeanor vanishing instantly.

Just as quickly, the gigantic cyclone of sand surrounding Susan more exploded outwards.

Reed winced noticeably and jerked back, as if he had been punched in the face.

"There..." He muttered to himself as a small trickle of blood began to emerge from his nose.

Sandman lifted still hammer shaped left hand, apparently willing to lay off Johnny for a bit turning his attention to Reed.

"So big deal. You managed to a bunch of itty bit sand mites that were all split up. Let's see you manage to stop a solid mass of the stuff, and you better or else you're gonna have a lot more than a simple headache to worry about!" He screamed.

Before the Sandman could strike however the puddle of blue at his feet rose up like a gigantic spike and impaled him.

At least it seemed to at first glance. At second it became clear that the Sandman had just quickly transformed his midsection into a swirling mass of sand. But before the Sandman could launch on his attack on Reed, the spike of Susan's flesh grew wider and spread outwards.

It forced the Sandman to reduce his entire body into one gigantic pile of sand in short order. A pile of sand was starting to retreat out of the room towards another section of Reed's lab.

"Susan, we've got to stop him, he's trying to escape!" Reed panted.

However by the time Susan had reformed herself into fighting shape Sandman had managed to slink into a nearby vent.

Undeterred, she proceeded to stretch her upper body into the vent as well, intent on tracking the criminal down. However before she could reel the rest of her body upwards Reed reached out and grabbed onto her left leg.

"Susan wait..." He advised.

Slowly but surely Ultra Woman began to slide backwards out of the vent with a dour look on her face.

"What?" She asked rather crossly.

"That's what he wants you to do, follow him. If you do, then he could either pick you apart in the vents, or he could double back and attack the two of us while we're on our own." Reed answered.

Susan looked somewhat torn for a moment but then conceded the point.

"You're right, as usual. How long will it be till Crystal and Ben get here? I think we could use all the help we can get on this..." Susan questioned..

Of course that said Susan was glad that her children were out of the Baxter Building at the moment. If they had been inside then Sandman might easily be able to acquire half a dozen hostages now that he had left the lab.

As it was, the group would be able to take their time and think things through. Simply put, there was no way the Sandman could really do any more damage than he had already done.

Reed paused for a moment and his blue eyes gained the unfocused look that came with being in psychic contact with someone far away.

Then he snapped back to reality, and his pupils went from badly dilated to once more focused.

"Crystal should be here in about ten minutes at the most. Meanwhile Ben is continuing to look after the kids, with Lockjaw ready to warp them to Attilan if Sandman's attack turns out to be part of some divide and conquer strategy.

As for the rest of us, you and Johnny keep guard, I've got some work to do..." Reed stated stoically.

Crystal returned to the Baxter Building and made her way to the lab without incident.

By the time she'd made it in, Reed had just finished up his modifications.

"There, what I've done is a fairly rough and slapdash job, but it should suffice.

The Sandman has never been able to actually split himself up, and so it should be fairly simple to keep track of him, even if he's in his silicone based form.

At the moment the Baxter Building is showing to be clear of supervillians, which would suggest that he's departed. Though we should probably remain on high alert and do a floor by floor search of the entire building just to be sure." Reed suggested.

Before he could get down to work however, he found a very long arm wrapped around his waist.

"Oh no, you don't. You're not going to find a way to weasel out of spending any more of Christmas day with your family. Besides as the saying goes there's safety in numbers." Ultra Woman chided him.

Susan and the rest of the team were soon out on the town with their children, but unknowst to them, more trouble was afoot in the Baxter Building.

The group hadn't had a chance to fully examine check Reed's lab, and so they missed one piece of equipment that had been sabotaged. About an hour after they departed, Reed's negative zone portal began to slowly spin itself life, or some approximation of it.

A large black portal that seemed to be made up of countless colors swirling around each other opened up in the middle of it. Then slowly a figure began to emerge from the portal, it was vaguely humanoid in the sense that it walked up right on two legs.

However beyond that, much of the similarities ended, given that the figure was covered in dark grey fur. Surprisingly its teeth seemed to just as blunt as a human's. It was wearing a strange blue colored one piece outfit that might have been some kind of body armor wherever came from.

Its muscles were firm and powerful as you might expect from a creature that seemed to be a blending of man and lion.

"So..." Snarled the creature as it looked around the lab. A moment later a mechanical voice pipped up in response.

"New arrival, scanning DNA... results... subject has no matching DNA patterns in memory banks. Setting security systems to standby..." The voice iterated emotionlessly.

The creature proceeded to snort derisively.

"Bah, I've only been in this dimension for five seconds, and already I can tell that it is full of weaklings. Soon I shall add it to my kingdom!" The creature bellowed to the empty lab..

Then it began to slowly pace out of the room and the next one that it found itself in. It was puzzled slightly by the large door that seemed designed specially to bar its presence, but it also soon found the necessary lever to pull to move the barrier aside fairly easily.

The monstrous thing continued to make his way through the building until finally he managed to find a simple clear glass window.

"Aha, finally a way out of this cursed building, and out into the wide world!" He raised his hands and brought them down in a smashing blow which shattered glass obstacle easily then he slowly began to climb out...

For his part, Sandman had retreated from the Baxter Building but had not abandoned it completely.

Instead, he had made his way to the roof. While it would be easy to modify the building's internal scanners, its external ones would take quite a bit more work.

The trick he had managed to pull off to get inside the Fantastic Five's Headquarters had been a one shot deal, so he didn't want to completely abandon his chances at scoring some kind of long lasting victory against his long time foes quite yet.

Sadly by the time he'd managed to take up his vigil he was in more or less perfect position to watch four fifths of the superhero team leave all together.

Knowing that picking a fight in which he was so badly outnumbered (not to mention faced with that damn elemental girl) was no way to get ahead.

Unfortunately neither was just hanging around, which left him to helplessly ponder exactly what he was waiting for to happen.

Then he saw it, a strange creature climbing out one of the Baxter Building's windows...

"What the hell are you?" The Sandman blurted out in surprise.

The grey furred beast turned towards him. Its jaws spread wide in what was either a predatory leer or a genuine smile. Then it bellowed out words in surprisingly good English.

"Aha! As the first denizen of this world I have come across, you shall have the esteemed pleasure of serving as my guide while I conquer it piece by piece!" Well that answered that question.

Both Johnny and his wife cringed as the tranquility of a Christmas day was shattered by an explosion.

It wasn't because of the explosion. The citizens of New York had become remarkably blasé about explosions over the last half a decade or so.

The Mandroid and Crystal were a bit more shaken by the blast, however, because that they knew they would have to deal with whatever had caused it.

In the blink of an eye, Johnny's skin gleamed with a metallic sheen.

"I'm not gonna waste my time telling you to stay back, especially since I'll need you to get me there in the first place. But do be careful, Crystal, you're crimefighting for two these days." Johnny reminded her.

His wife playful stroked her tummy tapping her fingers against it.

"For five actually." She replied quite earnestly.

Johnny had no come back to that other than to nod appreciatively.

"All right then, let's do what we do best. You take care of transportation, I'll contact Reed and Susan." No sooner had he said those words then Crystal drifted up into the air. Once there she began to summon up a powerful (but narrow) cyclone that would carry her husband along as well.

"As you can see, Mrs. Richards, this is one of our newest outfits." The saleswoman announce happily.

As horrible as shopping on December 24th was, doing it on the 25th could be quite pleasant. At least if could if you were shopping for something esoteric like maternity clothing.

Susan slowly spun about as she examined herself in numerous mirrors. The outfit felt a little bit cramped and awkward compared to her unstable molecule one, but that was par for the course.

Reed nodded in approval of how his wife looked. Others had different opinions however.

"We are gonna see the movies after this, right Uncle Ben?" Benjamin asked his godfather impatiently.

The Dragonfly reached out to stroke Susan's black haired son.

"Yeah of course we are. You know how girls are. Even your mom can't resist a chance to play dress up now and again..." This playful comment earned Ben equally playful punches from each of Susan's daughters in turn.

Chuckling over the adolescent antics Susan's gaze drifted back to her husband.

The expression upon his face was something guaranteed to kill any sensations of mirth she was feeling.

It wasn't angry or upset; it wasn't anything. It was the faraway look that Reed got when he was talking to someone who wasn't in the room.

Sure enough, as the look cleared away he slowly rose to his feet and began to remove the backpack he'd brought with him.

"Ben, you can take the kids to the movies. But first I'm going to need your pack." Reed instructed. Having been worried about Sandman popping up again, Reed had made sure to bring his armor with him.

Fitting every piece of his armor into two ordinary looking backpacks was extremely old hat to him by now.

Susan meanwhile slowly and carefully began to take off the dress revealing the unstable molecule uniform she refrained from removing beforehand.

As Ben lead the children from the store Susan began to pump her husband for information.

"So what is the problem this time?" She sighed, somehow no longer surprised that she might have to deal with two different supervillian attacks on Christmas.

Reed as always started donning his armor with his boots first.

"It's hard to say at the moment. There was some kind of explosion. It might have been an accident for all Johnny knows at the moment. He'll be able to get a firsthand look soon, but for now we should simply plan for the worst." Reed suggested.

It wasn't a bad suggestion either, even when the worst turned out to be worse than you could plan for.

The Inhuman generated windstorm abated and Johnny dropped about five feet to the ground. Crystal joined him on the ground a few seconds later and the pair gazed out at the scene of havoc before them.

A large pothole had been blown in the middle of a four way intersection and traffic had come to a crashing stop. In fact by the time they arrived most people had already fled their cars and the scene.

Not unsurprisingly Sandman was still lingering about the sight of the destruction, but remarkably he wasn't alone. His partner to Johnny's eye looked like a cross between Conan the Barbarian and King Kong.

The new supervillian pointed his hands in the direction of a nearby abandoned car and let loose with a bellow of rage.

"So! Finally some of this planets champions dare to face me, Blastaar the Living Bomb-Burst in battle! Witness my power and despair for the fate of your puny planet!"

In the wake of those words, red lines of energy sparked from his hands and slammed into the car which exploded sending shrapnel every which way.

Johnny instantly grabbed Crystal and swung her around, just barely managing to placing himself between her and any flying debris which came their way. When the smoke finally cleared, he turned his fingers towards Johnny and Crystal.

"Submit to my will now or be blasted into dust!" He demanded.

Johnny just smiled as he released his grip on Crystal and turned his gaze upon this new threat.

"I've been threatened by way better villains than you, and nobody has managed to talk their way past the Fantastic Five yet!" The Mandroid replied.

/Crys, you take care of Sandman, I'll hand this ugly gorilla in armor.\ He thought as loudly as possible since this was no time to be discussing strategy aloud.

As Johnny charged forward, it suddenly turns out that their opponents had come to the exact same conclusion about who was best suited to fighting whom.

Sandman's body disintegrating into a cloud of buzzing dust particles leapt in front of Blastaar ready to meet the Mandroid. He reformed himself faster than Johnny had ever seen before and with a huge hand scooped Johnny up off his feet.

Before he could figure out exactly what was going on Johnny found himself plummeting into a swirling cylinder of sand which began to harden itself around him. He was trapped with his arms pressed against his sides as Sandman began to roll him through the city and away from the fight towards some unknown destination.

Crystal watched with shock as the Sandman scooped up her husband. Channelling her elemental powers the Inhuman Princess let loose with a pressurized blast of water, but the Sandman managed to harden himself to point that it just washed over him right before it struck.

Then he started to roll away, leaving Crystal caught between going after her husband and keeping Blastaar contained. The later won out after a few moments of tense debate as she once more harnessed her wind powers.

After seeing what Blastaar had been able to do to several tons of steel with one blast from his fingertip sit was clear that maneuverability would be Crystal's best defense. The strange creature watched her drift back and forth about five feet off the ground for a few moments and then began to stride forward menacingly.

"Do you really believe that you, a mere female can stand in my way?" He rumbled.

Crystal felt a smile twitch at her lips.

"Let's find out!" She shot back, and followed up the words with a bolt of lightning.

This particular bolt only packed about as much voltage as your average tazer, but Crystal wanted to play it safe in case Blastaar wasn't as tough as he looked.

Just as she'd expected however the big brute simply laughed off her shock, however.

"If that is the best you are capable of, then you should return to breeding and leave fighting to the strong! " He cruelly mocked.

Crystal simply remained silent as she prepared another much more powerful bolt of lightning.

Jonathan Storm drew some comfort from the fact that despite being sucked up in a whirlwind and now rolled around like he was trapped in a drier, he was still holding onto his lunch.

It wasn't much but it was something. And at the moment small somethings were all he had to get by on.

Another small something was the occasional glimpses he was catching of the city as Sandman continued to roll through it an incredible pace. If he kept this up it wouldn't be long before they ran out of city and then... Oh!

The realization occurred to Johnny too late to do him any good however.

Sandman's body came to an abrupt stop at the edge of one of New York City's piers and unfolded itself, sending Johnny flying out to sea.

"Make sure to send me a post card from Davey Jones' locker, Mandroid!" Johnny could hear him call out right before he plunged into the water.

His metallic body sank like a submarine with a screen door, so Johnny changed tactics.

He returned to his human form. In the process he became painfully aware of just how cold the water was. Putting worries of hypothermia aside, he focused his attention on not drowning for the moment.

Luckily the speech Reed had given the team before heading down to Atlantis for Namor's wedding was still fairly fresh in his mind.

His eyes were doing 360s in his head from all the rolling he had been subjected to, but there was still one surefire way to tell up from down. He exhaled some the precious lungful of air he had grabbed at the last moment and watched which way the bubble went.

Jonathan could also remember seeing Sandman standing on the docks before he went into the drink, so he was fairly sure which way it was back to land. Holding his breath for as long as he could Johnny began to break into the best scissor kick he could manage.

He'd never be as good a swimmer as his sister, but he had watched her (and provided her with someone to practice against) enough times to have the basics down. Eventually when the burning sensation in his lungs became too much to bear he started swimming straight up towards the surface.

What he found waiting for him there was a considerable relief in two ways.

The first was a lung full of honest to goodness oxygen which had never before tasted so sweet. The second was the wooden planks of a dock.

Johnny began to tread water as silently as he could shifting about slightly. Sure enough he soon managed to catch sight of Sandman's new garish uniform through a gap between two wooden planks.

Taking another deep breath he dived under and swum over to one of the dock's nearby support structures. Wrapping both arms around it, he transformed back to the Mandroid and yanked.

The wooden beam snapped like a twig in his fingers and only now did he finally announce his presence.

"So long Sandman, I hate to break it to you, but it looks like your plan is all wet!" He joked.

With one of the key supports broken, Johnny was able to watch as the dock collapsed into the water, carrying the supervillian with it.

As he fell Sandman tried desperately to transform into a cloud of buzzing dust particles to float away from the river, but this only hastened his undoing. The moment his body touched the water it began to soak the stuff up transforming into mud.

In seconds Sandman had been transformed into nothing more than a mis-colored puddle to be yanked this way and that at the mercy of the tides.

When Reed on the Susan arrived on the scene it was painfully obvious that Crystal had her hands full. She was darting back and forth in midair avoiding blasts of energy being released from the finger tips of a strange beast.

Crystal momentarily stopped trying to return fire with bolts of lightning but thankfully not her evasive maneuvers to explain the situation.

/He says his name is Blastaar and that he's here to take over the world and so on and so forth. I've been letting him have it with everything I've got, but it's barely even fazed him!

At least so far I've been able to keep him shooting up into the sky and avoid property damage, but I'm not sure how much longer I can keep it up. Do either of you have any ideas?\

Reed began to look over "Blastaar" while blinking his eyes over and over again cycling his masks scanners through various different options.

"No... that's not possible..." Mr. Fantastic mumbled to himself suddenly. For one of the few times in his life, Reed Richards was unsure if one of his mechanical creations was functioning correctly.

"What is it, Reed?" Susan asked, leaning against him hesitantly.

"I'm picking up strange particle readings from Blastaar's body. I've seen them before, but only... Susan, can you go help Crystal keep Blastaar distracted? I'm going to need some time to set this up!" Reed implored her.

Susan kissed her husband's mask and smiled.

"No problem." Ultra Woman at once sprang into action rolling towards the grey furred monster which had yet to notice the arrival of its new opponents.

Being charged by a sphere about seven feet across rectified that problem nicely.

"What manner of beast is this!" Screamed Blastaar as he turned to point his hands at Susan.

Ultra Woman instantly uncoiled herself just time to have the monster's energy blast harmlessly through a gap in her now doughnut shaped form. Then she was upon her foe before he could launch another such blast, attacking form every conceivable direction.

Susan became a less of a person and more of a thick blue ooze sliding across every part of Blastaar's body. With a cry of rage he turned and pointed his hands towards his own chest and fired at a clump of Ultra Woman.

A clump that instantly retreated insuring Blastaar zapped himself full in the chest. He and his elastic foe went flying and were slammed into a nearby building.

Susan unfortunately acted as a built in cushion for Blastaar, but given his resilience to Crystal's lightning bolts it was unlikely that a little extra blunt drama would have made a difference.

Shaking his furred head ruefully as he emerged from the rubble Blastaar let loose with a wordless bellow of rage. From his toes to his wrists, and then on up to his neck, there was not a single inch of Blastaar's body which wasn't covered.

Not about to fall for the same trick twice, he tried a new strategy for freeing himself from Susan's goopey embrace .

He tore at Susan with every ounce of strength his bestial body could summon. His fingers while strong lacked any sort of claws however. If he'd had some he might have been able to hook them into Ultra Woman and tug at least some of himself free.

As it was, he only managed to entangle himself even more fully Susan's body. Eventually growing tired of this unwinnable struggle he decided to simply ignore her.

Blastaar began to move away from the building he'd blown himself into. Even then Ultra Woman took her toll however as it seemed as if he was moving through treacle. By that point it was too late anyways, Reed Richards was done thinking.

"Excuse me, but I think it's about time you went back where you came from!"

It's a tricky thing to contact someone psychically, and the further away from you they were the harder it was.

At the moment Reed wanted to speak to someone on the other side of the planet more or less. Luckily, if you were familiar with someone it could take some of the edge off.

At one point he'd thought that Susan, Ben, and Johnny would be the only people he'd ever be able to have easy direct mental contact to. Having Crystal be a part of the team for a few years however had proven that the link he shared with them wasn't tied to the fact that they had been present when Reed had developed his powers.

Instead it was simply a matter of how much time he'd spent close to them, and how well he knew whoever he was trying to mentally talk with.

Since his own connection with Queen Medusa of the Inhumans was somewhat tenuous he "piggybacked" his mental connection through Crystal.

After several tense seconds of sorting through mental static he somehow "felt" the connection he wanted slide into place.

/Medusa the Fantastic Five needs to borrow Lockjaw now, and I need him to open portals whatever destination I ask him to. Can you do that for me?\ Still more desperate seconds passed before the gigantic brown dog materialized after stepping through an orange portal right next to Reed.

He pointed at the rubble filled Area that Blastaar had just emerged from.

"Portal to just outside my lab, now! Follow us through it!" He ordered.

Lockjaw let loose with a slight whine, but the tuning fork like protrusion so of flesh above his head shimmered purple and the portal opened just as Blastaar set out to spread further havoc across the city.

"Excuse me, but I think it's about time you went back where you came from!" He announced.

Blastaar began to struggle against Susan to raise his arms toward Reed. Mr. Fantastic had no intention of letting his foe's powers help him however.

With a simple twitch of his neck her ignited the jetpack strapped to his back and turned himself into a metal missile. Susan perhaps fearing that Blastaar might unleash an energy jolt into her retreated away from his hands and Blastaar was able to get off the shot he wanted.

Not that it mattered, Reed could hear his armor's shielding system screeching in his ears, but it held. He slammed into Blastaar and knocked him into the portal, and ended up practically pile driving him into one of the Baxter Building's walls.

"Security system, this is Reed Richards. Open the door to my lab now! Lockjaw, portal to the special corner of my lab I showed you Medusa and Blackbolt. Susan, attack plan Cobra!" Reed ordered as he altered the direction of his thrusters slightly.

Rather than trying to keep Blastaar pinned against the wall he instead soared up to the ceiling, and away from his next energy attack. As the door to Reed's lab opened a glistening portal appeared in it.

Susan wrapped her arms around Blastaar's shoulders, but otherwise fled from his body. Instead she transformed herself from the waist down into a large spring.

Ultra Woman let go of Blastaar body and her coiled form shot forward, bouncing Blastaar into the portal.

While Lockjaw couldn't create a portal from outside Reed's lab to the inside of it, he could create one portal inside of it that lead to somewhere else inside of it.

Reed cut the thrusters and jumped into the portal with Susan following right after him. Blastaar lay on the floor before Reed's negative zone portal, still trying to recover from his two sudden changes in environments.

"Susan, pull the red lever!" Reed ordered. Ultra Woman's elastic arm did just that and the portal crackled to life sowing pictures of a swirling universe nearly completely devoid of life.

"Time for you to taste the power that flows from my fingers Blastaar!" Reed said as he let loose with the most powerful concussion blast that his gauntlets could produce.

It didn't do much to him, but it was enough.

It forced him a few feet backwards into the open Negative Zone Portal.

"Push the red lever back into the position Susan..." Reed finished.

The rubbery limb gave the lever another jerk and the electronic whine died away, as did his view of the negative zone, and most importantly of all, Blastaar. Reed heaved a mighty sigh of relief as he slowly rose to his feet.

"Well, that takes care of that. I think I've learned something very important from all of this though..." He wheezed forlornly.

"Somehow I doubt it's the true meaning of Christmas." Susan predicted. Reed nodded.


End file.
